School district is leaning away from $900K solar array project



Because the roof of Melrose School cannot support the weight of solar arrays, an alternative plan is to erect a canopy like this one at the Jamestown Community Farm. The cost of the added infrastructure, however, would cause the project to go over budget. PHOTO BY ANDREA VON HOHENLEITEN

Because the roof of Melrose School cannot support the weight of solar arrays, an alternative plan is to erect a canopy like this one at the Jamestown Community Farm. The cost of the added infrastructure, however, would cause the project to go over budget. PHOTO BY ANDREA VON HOHENLEITEN

If the school committee nixes its plan to install solar panels on its buildings, the $897,775 earmarked for that project can be used for other repairs.

Ken Duva, superintendent of schools, updated the facilities subcommittee during its meeting Tuesday afternoon. Duva said he learned from the district’s bond counsel, David Ferrara, about the liberal language in the bond warrant.

“The bond was written in a way for approval of those bond funds to be used for replacement and renovations in school construction projects,” Duva said. “That means the funds are there to be used for any of the projects that we presented forward that need to be completed.”

The $5.9 million bond was passed by voters in 2018 to finance a five-year capital program approved by the state Department of Education. B.J. Whitehouse, a member of the subcommittee, was chairman of the school committee at the time, and wanted to know why the project is no longer feasible.

“I told the town that we were going to save lots and lots of money by putting solar panels on the roofs of the buildings,” he said. “At the time, the people who were talking to us convinced me that the roofs were structurally sound. In four years, has something happened to the structure that will not allow us to follow through with the program?” Duva said he doesn’t think anything has changed, but “further studies afterwards” revealed the roofs at Melrose and Lawn to be incapable of holding the amount of weight proposed in the original plan.

“Those were all proposals at the time based on information that was provided to us,” Duva said.

“I’m a little concerned about this,” Whitehouse said. “I stood in front of a whole bunch of people at a financial town meeting and told them all about this program.” Whitehouse’s concern was with the suggestion of using money from the solar plan to cover the costs of other projects. For example, Duva said, bids for upgrades to the HVAC systems already have come in over budget, and that work had to be postponed. Whitehouse, however, recommended against using the $897,775 for anything other than renewable energy.

“I just want to make sure that the public is aware of what’s going on,” he said. “I am a little concerned when I hear we can use this money for something else. It may be in the bond, but that’s not what we told people.”

Town Administrator Jamie Hainsworth, who also serves on the subcommittee, said the project is essentially “null and void.”

“You can’t put something on the roof that can’t go there,” he said.

Hainsworth also said he anticipated the concern from Whitehouse.

“I don’t know how we get by that,” he said. “We do have to deal with that at some point.”

Saccoccio & Associates, a firm that was contracted by the district to implement its five-year plan, identified two alternative plans to the $897,775 project. Duva presented the three plans.

Following installation of new roofs in summer 2019, the original plan was to erect solar arrays across the entire Melrose School roof and above the Lawn School gymnasium and cafeteria. This would have generated 515,370 kilowatt-hours of electricity annually for the school district, according to a spreadsheet provided by Duva, which represents 137 percent of its average usage of 372,873 kilowatt-hours. The remainder could be used to subsidize utility costs at other municipal buildings, he said.

After the roofs were completed, however, a structural engineering analysis determined that “minimal amounts of additional loading” could be safely added to the roofs, which made the original plan no longer feasible.

Peter Anderson, director of buildings and maintenance for the school district, and Kyle Robinson, project manager for Saccoccio & Associates, did not respond to phone calls about why the structural analysis was not done before the solar array was included in the bond.

A second plan was to install solar panels over the corridors at Melrose and above the Lawn gymnasium. This reduced number of arrays would generate about 128,000 kilowatt-hours annually, which accounts for 34 percent of the energy production used by the schools. The cost for this project was estimated at $370,000.

Rough estimates crunched by Duva, however, showed this project to be, at best, revenue-neutral for 20 years. According to his spreadsheet, the district paid $67,036 in electricity costs in 2019. The potential savings from those panels would be $20,110 annually, although the yearly debt service from a 20-year bond would be about $23,888.

The third option would be to install solar panels over the corridors at Melrose and construct a canopy over a portion of the parking lot at that school. More panels would then be built onto the canopy.

According to this plan, the arrays would generate about 301,352 kilowatt-hours of electricity annually, which is about 80 percent of the district’s needs. This option, however, would cost $980,000 because of construction costs and infrastructure upgrades to connect to the canopy.

With drawbacks to all three options, Duva suggested the possible fourth option of using a portion of the money for the solar project to subsidize other capital projects that are “more pertinent.”

Despite the snag, Drew Allsopp, a member of the school board who also serves on the subcommittee, encouraged the panel to continue to prioritize green energy. Subcommittee member Mike Gray, director of public works for Jamestown, agreed.

“I don’t want to say that you should just abandon that goal,” he said. “You still have rooftops. Some project is feasible.”