Staff recommends pulling plug on Solar City project
Posted Jul 10, 2012 04:59:47 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The future of Halifax’s Solar City project does not look bright as city staff are recommending council cancelling the program, which would have fitted 500 homes with solar panels for heating hot water.
A staff report being presented to Halifax Regional Council today is recommending council discontinue development of the project as a municipally led program, cancel the Request for Proposal for supplies and installation of solar thermal domestic hot water systems, and forward the complete file to Efficiency Nova Scotia for future project consideration.
“The staff recommendation was quite surprising because this program has received tremendous support at all levels. Staff and council have repeatedly shown great enthusiasm,” chief operating officer of Scotia Windfields, Dan Roscoe, told Maritime Morning Monday.
More than 1,600 people signed up for the program over a three week period in 2010, three times the number of participants the city was looking for, although the pilot could accommodate up to 1,000 participants.
“The Solar City staff that has put this together remain just as committed and passionate as ever,” environmentalist Chris Majka told the Rich Howe Show Monday. “I’m told that high up, somewhere in city staff bureaucracy, some people just can’t be bothered.”
The city was looking for $5 million in bridge financing and a $1 million grant from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. Its first request did not fit with in the FCM’s Green Municipal Fund parameters and its second request is still pending.
The staff report being presented to council says “without the FCM Green Municipal Fund monies (loan and grant) applied for, the framework of the municipality acting as general contractor, the basis of the project concept, cannot be delivered as a commercially competitive offering to residents.”
Majka disagrees, saying there are at least three options for moving forward.
Energy Minister Charlie Parker is said to have offered the city the bridge financing it needs to fulfill the project and Efficiency Nova Scotia has made the commitment to contribute up to $1,250,000 in rebates.
HRM is said to have $12 million in a reserve fund and could finance the project itself. Or, it could ask the federal government for support.
“Those participants would have to pay a thousand dollars more,” said Majka. “See if they want to go with it. They do have a waiting list of some 600 people who want to participate.”
