St. Louis American
East St. Louis wants to turn a polluted property once owned by aluminum manufacturer Alcoa into a community solar project that could lower electric bills for thousands of residents.
Under the proposal, residents would pay a $50 annual subscription fee to receive credits on their electric bills, City Manager Robert Betts said.
Betts said the 15-megawatt solar farm would provide bill credits to about 2,000 low-income residents who pay the annual fee. Another 1,000 residents could save up to 50% on their electric bills.
Any excess energy would be used to power city buildings and potentially support future business development.
Construction is expected to begin this month and be completed next year. Betts said the city is still awaiting approval of an interconnection agreement from Ameren Illinois.
East St. Louis first proposed the project about 20 years ago during Betts’ first stint as city manager.
“We tried it way back then, thinking that the process for the cleanup would only take a few years, no more than five, but it’s taken 20-some years to get this done,” he said.
Now Betts is again serving as city manager and picking up where he left off.
“What can we do to pass some savings on to the citizens, which are low-income and struggling to make these monthly utility payments?” he said. “So that’s what really drove me to make sure that we start this project back up.”
Many East St. Louis residents live on fixed incomes, Betts said. According to U.S. Census data, 32% of residents live in poverty — about three times the national average. Twenty-three percent are seniors.
The city worked with Renewable Energy Evolution to develop the project through the Biden administration’s Solar for All program.
President Donald Trump’s administration clawed back some of that money, but company founder and CEO Brian Maillet said Illinois was able to move the funding into state accounts quickly.
“Illinois got a lion’s share of that money from the federal government because they already had this program in place, so the state of Illinois is the place to be right now for solar,” he said.
Maillet said his company will pay the city upfront to lease the land for the project, a move expected to generate more than $1 million in revenue for East St. Louis. The city would take ownership of the solar farm within seven years.
East St. Louis residents also must make up at least 30% of the workforce under the company’s contract.
“We’re going to be training folks, reeducating them and getting them ready for the green energy economy that’s happening right now,” Maillet said.
According to project officials, toxic heavy metals and radioactive materials remain buried just a few feet below the surface at the former Alcoa site, making a solar farm one of the few safe options for redevelopment.
Betts said the solar farm is one of several projects aimed at revitalizing East St. Louis, including new housing developments, infrastructure improvements and efforts to support a proposed expansion of Gateway Arch National Park onto the Illinois riverfront.
“We’re building housing developments throughout the city. We’re improving our infrastructure, so this is a good time to be a city manager in East St. Louis,” Betts said.
This article originally appeared here.
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