Greenville Michigan Is Using Solar Power to Support Municipal and School Buildings Throughout the City
Original Article posted at www.mml.org
An effort to use solar power to operate municipal and school buildings is turning Greenville into “GreenERville” and quickly making the West Michigan community a leader in alternative energy.
The saying goes, every cloud has a silver lining and in Greenville’s case, that couldn’t be more fitting. About six years ago the city experienced international media attention when its largest employer—Electrolux—packed up and left for Mexico and other plants in the U.S. It was a gloomy period as the city of 8,000 people lost an estimated 4,000 jobs. But soon the grey skies were replaced quite literally by the sun when city leaders successfully wooed a new manufacturer—United Solar Ovonic (Uni-Solar)—a manufacturer of solar materials that harness the sun’s energy. Today, Uni-Solar employs more than 300 workers and hopes to grow to 800 employees. Greenville officials not only liked the new jobs created, but were also so impressed with the product that they’ve teamed with Uni-Solar and the Greenville Public Schools to install solar systems at municipal and school buildings throughout the city.
“I don’t know of a community anywhere in the country where the school system and the municipality have partnered in this way to completely convert the energy load to alternative energy,” says Greenville City Manager George Bosanic. “We were able to sway them to come to Greenville, and when we did that they invested almost a half billion dollars in facilities and have created almost 400 jobs, on pace to create 800 jobs here in our community that desperately needs it. They are wonderful people and have a wonderful product and we said let’s make our facilities a flagship demonstration for you so people can come in and see for themselves that it works. The fact is it does work, and it works really well, but a lot of people don’t know that.”
To date, the city and school system are paying for a number of solar panel systems with state and federal funds, low-interest bonds, and renewable energy incentives from Consumers Energy. Greenville, for example, was the first city in the state to participate in Consumers Energy’s Experimental Advanced Renewable Program (EARP). This renewable energy incentive program buys back solar power at 37.5 cents per kilowatt hour. Bosanic explained the city will use the revenue to pay off the bonds over the next 12 years, and will eventually have free power. Yes, that’s right, “FREE.”
“By the end of the fall we will have installed nearly 600 kilowatts of solar panels on municipal and school facilities,” Bosanic said. “In 12 years we will have paid for the installation and we will have 13 years of free electricity thereafter as the product has a warranty of 25 years.”
Using the city’s name, city and school leaders call it the “GreenERville” initiative and are embarking on the most ambitious demonstration of converting a city to renewable solar energy-powered systems that Michigan has ever seen. Using the funds they have been able to secure so far, solar panels will power Greenville’s city hall, community center, waste water treatment plant, municipal water supply, airport, and two school buildings.
“We played off the name—Greenville,” Bosanic said. “It’s an interesting twist of fate that this alternative energy is coming about and our name is Green-ville. We truly want to make it that. This is likely going to be the largest solar installation in the state. It’s pretty exciting.”
The solar panels to be installed on the city and school buildings are expected to produce 15 to 20 percent of their energy needs. This will result in a large savings to the city and school district’s energy costs. Eventually they hope to go totally solar.
Greenville Mayor Ken Snow attributes much of the city’s recent solar success to the tenacity of its city manager and Bosanic’s constant desire to partner with businesses and organizations, such as Greenville Public Schools Superintendent Peter Haines.
“After Electrolux left, we had to rejuvenate the city,” Snow said. “There was a lot of bad press. It has hurt our economy—but none of us were going to roll over and say this is the end of our community. We weren’t going to roll up our sidewalks and walk away. The object was to take the challenge. George, our city manager, loves a challenge and this was a big one. It was probably the biggest one he’ll ever face in his life and he was undeterred. He just kept going at it no matter what.”
Tim Kelley, plant manager at Uni-Solar, explained the company has hired many former Electrolux workers and has been impressed with the open-arms attitude of community leaders. The company now has two 280,000-square-feet facilities in the city’s industrial park—one opened in 2007, and the other in 2008.
“We moved to Greenville as a result of the collaboration between government officials and city leaders and the skilled work force that was here,” Kelley said. “It’s been an outstanding relationship. We are developing solar projects with the city, and city officials were integral in making this GreenERville vision a reality.”
Among the buildings getting the solar panels is city hall. It will soon sport a 45-kilowatt solar panel system on its roof. A total of about 136 kilowatts worth of solar panels will be installed on two airplane hangars at Greenville Municipal Airport, joining a 15-kilowatt system installed at the airport’s terminal building a few years ago, which was funded by the Bureau of Aeronautics. The municipal water supply facility will receive 17 kilowatts funded by the Drinking Water Revolving Loan Fund and the Wastewater Treatment Plant received a 75-kilowatt ground mount system funded by the U.S. Economic Development Administration. Greenville High School and Lincoln Heights Elementary School will split 202 kilowatts, partially funded by Energy Works Michigan.
Energy Works Director, Emile Lauzzana, discusses the Michigan Renewable Schools
Program with Governor Granholm and the importance of renewable energy at Michigan
K-12 Schools.
The city of Greenville also recently received an Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG) awarded by the Michigan Department of Energy, Labor & Economic Growth. This funding was allocated by the U.S. Department of Energy as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The grant money will equip Greenville’s community center with a 17-kilowatt system of solar panels.
EECBG is a program that the Michigan Municipal League supported by creating the “Michigan Green Communities Challenge,” which is an energy efficiency and conservation strategy. This Green Challenge was designed to ready communities who applied for EECBG funds, and the League continues to support recipient communities with promotional services.
The tri-angular project between the city, schools, and company also has got the attention of the media, such as a recent in-depth article by rapidgrowthmedia.com, and state officials, including Governor Jennifer Granholm.
A number of elected officials from other communities have told Bosanic, “We want to see you do this, so that we can see how it works, and then maybe we can be next.”
Greenville’s transition to solar power is meant to be “very transparent,” and “we are going to demonstrate how it works and how it is working for us. Hopefully other communities can emulate what we are doing,” Bosanic said.
But it hasn’t always been easy. In the process, Bosanic encountered legislative limitations which he said are keeping Greenville from advancing the most efficient strategy. For example, the prohibition of off-site net-metering “prohibits us from reaching our full potential for success,” because “whatever power you generate has to be used on-site, and you can’t off-set it somewhere else,” he said. Further, “airport hangers have large roofs, which could be utilized to generate power for other locations—however, right now, that is not allowed.”
Blazing a fresh path is revealing what works, but Bosanic says it is also helping to identify the stumbling blocks along the way. In the future, he said, “the Legislature and utilities might loosen up and say, we need to move in this direction.”
Grasping a hold of the power of the sun has required that Greenville reach out toward an unfamiliar horizon. Their solar power demonstration is plotting a course that Bosanic hopes will make it easier for other municipalities to follow suit. For now, there are a lot of eyes on Greenville’s attempt to go completely “dependant on alternative energy.”
Who Else Has Solar?
This past spring, 12 solar panels installed last year atop the Ypsilanti City Hall were wired to the building and began generating electricity. According to AnnArbor.com, the solar panels on city hall generate about 9.8 kilowatt hours of electricity per day—a fraction of city hall’s weekday use, but almost half of its weekend use.
The city of Traverse City is putting solar panels on a parking deck and plans to sell the excess power; the project also includes plug-ins for electric vehicles.
By: Jennifer Eberbach
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