Clifton Sold on Solar Power to Save Money

Clifton Sold on Solar Power to Save Money; State Grant Would Help Place Panels Atop City Hall

Jun 15 - Record, The; Bergen County, N.J.

CLIFTON - The historic property of City Hall may soon be at the cutting edge of the future.

Clifton is one of only a handful of municipalities in the state that have applied for the New Jersey Clean Energy Program to convert their city hall to solar power.

"When we sent the application to the Board of Public Utilities, they said they hadn't gotten any applications from municipalities - schools only," City Manager Barbara Sacks said. "Clifton was the first one they'd heard from. Since then, two other towns have applied. It just shows you that out of 566 municipalities, they only got three applications."

If the grant is approved, the state will cover up to 60 percent of the cost of purchasing and installing solar panels on top of the municipal complex. The change would bring the city substantial savings in energy costs, Sacks said.

"The architect did the feasibility study and it came out better than we thought," she said, adding that the study showed a potential initial savings of $73,000 to $75,000 a year on electricity bills.

The savings could increase after that.

"These things [the panels] have a guarantee for at least 25 years, so if you look at a payback period of 5 1/2 years, after that it's free electricity, basically."

Clifton's City Hall is ideally suited for solar energy panels because of its flat roof, said George Weiner of Gale Associates of Hoboken, which performed the feasibility study.

He said alternative forms of energy are gaining support, even among large, traditional utilities.

"The state of New Jersey doesn't produce enough energy during summer months, so the state goes on the grid [the Northeast power grid] and the utility companies have to pay $1 per kilowatt-hour to the grid," Weiner said.

City officials are waiting to hear whether their grant application has been approved, but they're already sold on the idea.

"Maybe in five or 10 years other municipalities will be going to this - who knows?" Sacks said. "But right now it's innovative for municipal governments to do something like this. It's what you have to go to when turning off the lights at night is not enough. You still have to save money."

For far more extensive news on the energy/power visit: http://www.energycentral.com .