News

Norway wins SolarBee grant

Sun Journal
Wed, 02/17/2010
By Leslie H. Dixon

NORWAY — The town has been awarded grant funds for two solar-energy units that will dramatically reduce the sewer plant's electrical usage, Town Manager David Holt said Tuesday.

 The SolarBee units will be added to the existing SolarBee unit that was installed two years ago. That unit cut the department's electrical use in half. The new SolarBee units are expected to significantly decrease the remaining energy usage at the Brown Street plant, and may squelch sewer-user fee increases in the future, Holt said.

 "It will affect user rates in the sense that it will avoid increases," said Holt of the technology that allows the energy from the sun to power the plant's wastewater circulators.

 The SolarBee, which operates day and night on solar power, reduces energy consumption by reducing aeration/mixing equipment run time, according to information from the company. According to its Web site, SolarBee Inc. is a world leader in improving water quality in reservoirs in a green and sustainable manner. Its SolarBee machines use solar power instead of grid power, and they reduce or entirely eliminate the need to add chemicals to a water reservoir.

 "We were spending $55,000 a year (in electrical charges), Holt said of the plant's energy bill prior to the installation of the first SolarBee. "It will really reduce the $25,000 to $27,000 we're still depending on. A couple (of SolarBee units) should really help us."

 The funding will come from the Public Utilities Commission's Energy Efficiency and Conservation Custom Project grant, which is part of the federal government's stimulus program. Town officials submitted the grant application last November. They also applied for a similar program through the Maine Department of Environmental Protection as a backup funding method. The DEP grant was turned down last Friday, Holt said.

 There is a $27,080 sewer budget match requirement that Holt said would be saved rather quickly from lower electric bills at the sewer plant.

 He said no town meeting action will be necessary to fund the matching portion of the grant because it is expected that the money will be taken from the sewer-user accounts savings in the operations budget of the plant. If that cannot happen for any reason, Holt said, the matching money could be borrowed from an existing $1.5 million Rural Development grant. That action would require town meeting approval, he said.

 In 2007, the Wastewater Department won a $50,000 renewable energy PUC state grant to implement the first in the state solar-powered reservoir circulator at the treatment plant.

 It was one of 10 grants awarded that year that ranged from $8,711 to the $50,000 garnered by the Norway Wastewater Department, the Downeast Salmon Federation in East Machias and the University of Maine at Presque Isle.

 Holt had high praise on Tuesday for Shawn Brown, superintendent of the Norway Wastewater Department who discovered the SolarBee system. "He has been very aggressive in trying to improve plant operations," Holt said.

 The two new SolarBee units are expected to save between 150,000 and 250,000 kilowatts per year in energy. The town tied for first place in scoring for the grant in areas such as project feasibility. It ranked highest in energy and economic benefits and second highest in cost-effectiveness out of 59 applicants from across the state.

 The town of Bethel received a $20,550 grant for an energy-efficient retrofitting project and tied first first place with Norway with overall points.