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At the monthly Fourth Ward meeting, residents were updated on the Robert Crown Community Center’s upcoming electricity source shift with its rooftop solar panels installed last year.
Jonathan Nieuwsma, Fourth Ward councilmember, said the center plans to make the switch in the coming month, with an early April date on the horizon and a ribbon cutting likely on April 22, Earth Day. The project is estimated to save the city $2.7 million in energy costs over 20 years.
The project was first introduced in August 2023, when a request for proposals was issued. Then, in February 2024, the City Council authorized staff to sign a contract with Chicago-based Verde Solutions to lead the installation of panels and ongoing operation of the solar energy system.
Nieuwsma said that while the official agreement was signed in 2024, staff began years before that to get it going.
“That start [date] doesn’t include the four years of getting the city comfortable with doing something like this, showing the city staff, the engineering department, our public works department, what had been done in other municipalities,” he said. “The Skokie Park District has a brand new rooftop solar system, so getting the city comfortable with it, and getting the council to agree to approve a contract took probably three years.”
According to representatives with Verde Solutions, the city has entered into a “power purchase agreement,” an arrangement in which a developer — in this case Verde — owns, operates and maintains a PV (photovoltaic) system on property owned by the customer (the city).
The city does not have to pay any upfront costs for installment or maintenance over the years; that cost is covered by a third party investor, Onyx Renewables, according to Grace Rasmussen, an engineer with Verde.
“The only obligation of the system host, in this case, the Community Center, is to purchase the solar electricity produced at a certain rate for a certain amount of time,” Rasmussen said.
“So what this means is the rate that they purchase the electricity is usually cheaper than what you’re paying for on your utility bill, so you save the spread between what you’re paying to the third party asset owner versus what you’re paying to ComEd.”
The community center uses about 3.8 million kilowatt hours in electricity annually and the solar panels are expected to produce 1.2 million in electricity, according to Rasmussen.
“All those solar panels will generate enough electricity to offset about a third of the annual usage for this building,” Nieuwsma said. “Ice rinks and the ice machinery take a heck of a lot of energy. So that’s enough solar panels for probably 300 houses.”
The price the city will pay Verde for electricity generated by the system is already part of the agreement, and the city won’t need to buy that electricity via the power grid, so the project will lower energy costs while it reduces greenhouse gas emissions.
The power purchase agreement is set for 20 years, and the city is estimated to save $2.7 million, according to Rasmussen. Once the agreement expires, the city can extend it for another 15 years, end it and take down the panels, or purchase the panels at fair market value, he added.
On-site renewable energy generation is part of the city’s Zero Emissions Strategy for Municipal Operations, which was adopted in 2021. This plan focuses on what the city can do in its own operations to advance the goals of the 2018 Climate Action and Resilience Plan.
The city has two rooftop PV systems it operates itself, one at the water treatment facility and the other at the Levy Senior Center. An initial analysis has suggested that city-owned rooftops have the potential to generate up to 4.6 million kilowatt hours of energy, or as much as 15% of the city’s annual electricity needs.
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My Ly is an Alabama native and a graduate of Auburn University where she served as a managing editor, community reporter and editor for The Auburn Plainsman, the student-run newspaper. While at Auburn… More by My Ly
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