Delaware City takes a major step toward reducing its environmental impact.
DNREC Secretary Collin O’Mara joined city officials to dedicate a new solar farm surrounding the Delaware City Athletic Fields on Route 9. The array consists of over 1,900 Delaware-built solar panels providing nearly 675,000 kilowatt hours of energy, enough to power about 40 average homes.
Delaware’s Solar Renewable Energy Credit (SREC) program funded the project’s construction. The SREC also aided in setting up a 20-year power purchasing agreement (PPA) with California based solar energy company SolarCity. Under the agreement with SolarCity, the city's power costs will be lowered to 5 cents per kilowatt hour, cutting the city’s energy costs in half. By the end of the 20-year agreement, the city is expected to save over $1 million.
Secretary O’Mara notes the array will allow the city to operate almost completely on renewable energy. The panels can handle 96 percent of the electrical demand generated by the city’s municipal buildings.
“There is no one in the state, in local government, that’s close to that threshold," said O'Mara. "This is a huge accomplishment for a community of this size, and I think it really paves the way to challenge communities of the same size or even bigger, saying ‘What are you doing, how are you doing your part to try to have a cleaner, healthy, more prosperous Delaware?’”
Delaware City's city manager Dick Cathcart believes that a project like this is within reach for most cities.
“We hired a consultant to help us put the RFP together but other than that cost, this didn’t cost us a dime," said Cathcart. "It’s companies like SolarCity that will come in and build these facilities for you in return for you buying the power off of them at the end of the day. Any municipality that’s not looking into this is really missing a great opportunity.”
The 2.5 acres surrounding the athletic fields was donated by PBF energy.
The array reduces annual greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 500 tons of carbon dioxide, the equivalent of removing about 100 cars from the road.