RALEIGH -- Ten city-owed acres at Raleigh's southeastern edge will soon be used to generate solar electricity under a plan approved by the City Council on Tuesday.
The project, a public-private partnership involving Progress Energy Carolinas and two other companies, will allow Raleigh to burnish its green credentials without investing any taxpayer money.
The deal calls for Raleigh to lease 10 acres of farmland next to its Neuse River Wastewater Treatment Plant to Morrisville-based Southern Energy Management and Charlotte-based NxGen Power. The two companies will install solar panels that are expected to generate 1.7 million kilowatt-hours of electricity a year.
That amount of power is roughly equivalent to the energy used by 200 homes annually, or the amount of power required to operate the wastewater treatment plant for a month. The installation, which is expected to be in operation by early next year, will be the state's largest solar installation on property owned by a local government.
"It's a lot of electricity," Mayor Charles Meeker said Tuesday.
Progress Energy has agreed to buy all the electricity produced for the first 20 years the system is in operation. Raleigh will have the opportunity to buy the system from Southern Energy and NxGen after six or seven years.
The project is the fifth, and largest, solar-array installation announced by Progress Energy Carolinas since the company sent out a request for such projects last year.
Progress and other utilities are under pressure to comply with legislation passed by the General Assembly in 2007.
The legislation requires that utilities such as Progress get at least 3 percent of their retail sales from renewable energy sources by 2012 and requires the power companies to tap solar energy.
The project is part of a larger effort by Raleigh officials to make the city more energy-efficient. Last month, Raleigh announced that it would plant sunflowers on 50 acres near the Neuse River plant. Dale Crisp, the city's public utilities director, said the city hopes to harvest the seeds for the oil they produce and sell the oil to a biofuel producer.
The City Council's vote on Tuesday allows city staff to begin negotiating with Southern Energy and NxGen about a lease agreement for the 10 acres. Assistant City Manager Julian Prosser estimated the cost of the solar installation at $8.5 million, though officials with Southern Energy were unable to confirm that figure Tuesday.
Prosser said the success of the project could help the city determine whether additional solar installations would make sense.
"This is something we do hope to do in other places," Prosser said. "We're learning as we go with this."
