Harwich Celebrates Solar Panels

solar panelsHARWICH – The Town of Harwich is celebrating the powering up of its solar panel farm at the town landfill, located at 273 Queen Anne Road.

A celebratory ribbon cutting will take place September 17 at 2 p.m. at the Town of Harwich landfill.

The Town of Harwich has wanted to promote and install large-scale, alternate energy sources since 2002 to offset town energy usage costs. Therefore, town officials welcomed the request to install solar panels from Cape & Vineyard Electric Cooperative, Inc., according to a statement issued by  Harwich Assistant Town Administrator Julie Quintero-Schultz.

The Harwich Utility & Energy Conservation Commission worked with the Cooperative to obtain application approval for the landfill site and the Harwich Board of Selectmen endorsed the initiative.

It was determined that the landfill could support 4 megawatts of solar panels. No tree removal was required, and the site was relatively close to the NStar grid, thus reducing construction costs.

The landfill will host 15,488 modules, constructed by American Capital Energy and financed by Clean Focus.

The projected savings after first year is expected to be $313,426 and after 20 years the projected savings is $8,753,986.

The panels were technically powered up on August 1,

“This is the culmination of enormous efforts undertaken by the Town of Harwich, the U&EC, Board of Selectmen, and CVEC,” stated Administrator Christopher Clark, “and we are looking forward to significant savings towards our energy usage costs.”

He added that the project has met with acceptance by town leaders and members of the community.



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