BARTOW – Bartow is going solar today.
The city will unveil its new, 40-acre solar farm, which will generate enough power to offset 5 percent of the city’s power needs, said City Manager George Long. Until now, the city has bought that power from Orlando Utilities Commission, which primarily uses natural gas and coal to fuel its power plants. Now, the sun will fuel some of Bartow’s electricity.
The city will continue to buy the bulk of its power from OUC for the next three years but the first 7 megawatts of available power will come from the solar farm. And the true value of the project, Long said, will be measured over time through savings on fuel costs.
The projected savings to the city, he said, totals about $5 million over the next 30 years, which means lower power costs for the city’s estimated 12,000 power customers.
“That may not sound like a ton of money over 30 years,” he said, “but it’s part of diversifying the city’s portfolio of energy sources.”
The city began working with NovaSol Energy, an Orlando-based solar energy provider, about two years ago. Together they identified a site in northeast Bartow and began developing the project.
“The entire project has been on their dime,” Long said. “They bought the site and deeded it over to city, and they built the project.”
Haseeb Qadri, chief executive officer at NovaSol Energy, said construction totaled $11.5 million to prepare the site and install acres and acres of solar panels. According to industry standards, it should take about seven years to recoup that investment, he said.
Qadri said his company was drawn to the workable size of the project and Bartow’s innovative approach to providing power.
“For a small municipality to propose a project like this is not common,” Qadri said. “In some of the larger utilities, solar is only 1 percent (of power demand,) so 5 percent is pretty significant.”
Initially, the city considered a project with the capacity to produce 5 megawatts of power, he said, but as talks moved forward, the city agreed to expand the project to 9 megawatts. Under the city's contract with NovaSol, Bartow will purchase the first 7 megawatts produced by the farm.
“The city was willing to increase the project as much as their infrastructure could handle,” Qadri said. “That’s forward thinking.”
To start, the farm will channel 7 megawatts of solar power into Bartow’s power distribution system, Long said. Crews have been testing the site along Gaines Road for the last week with no surprises. It’s expected to begin channeling a full load through the city’s transmission lines later this week.
For the city, the project represents financial stability in a volatile energy market.
Natural gas is a primary fuel source for the wholesale power Bartow currently purchases and that cost is at historic lows, nearly mirroring the city’s current cost for solar energy. Low natural gas rates have led to reduced wholesale power costs for the city, but it’s unlikely natural gas prices will remain at the current levels, Long said.
The only anticipated increases in the cost of solar power, Long said, lie in routine operation and maintenance, and those are expected to be negligible.
Qadri said the solar-panel system is warrantied for 25 years and the panels generally have a life expectancy exceeding 30 years.
“The city knows what the cost is going to be to produce this power 15 years from now,” he said. “You can’t say that about natural gas.”
Suzie Schottekotte can be reached at suzie.schottelkotte@theledger.com or 863-533-9070. Follow her on Twitter @southpolkscene.