Special Bd. of Aldermen — 08/06/2019 Page 4
Alderman Laws
| remember vaguely someone once said there is 1 million square feet of roofage in our public school system and
| am just wondering why that hasn’t been a consideration. | feel like those are, some of them are relatively
recent structures that could support it.
President Wilshire
Alderman Dowd did you want to take a shot at that?
Alderman Dowd
Yeah I'll take a good shot at that. Most of the schools, even though they have flat roofs, do not have the
structure to hold the weight of solar panels. We are looking, we will have if we build a new school down in the
south part of Nashua we will have solar panels on the roof. But as far as the other schools, they weren’t built to
hold that additional weight. So the only other building that comes to mind that could support the weight is the
Police Department. That building was built so that they could one or two additional floors, so | would have to
presume that it is strong enough to hold solar panels assuming we are not going to add a couple of floors to that
building. But no we’ve looked into the other schools, if there is a roof that will support it, we will look into it. But
most of them won't.
Alderman Laws
Thank you.
Mayor Donchess
Now | would add to that that when we hire the new energy manager which you have authorized, there are
school projects that certainly can be undertaken. For example the one that we have talked about with the
School Department and which could yield, there would be some costs associated with it but which would yield
significant benefits is the conversion of each of the high schools to LED. Now we have seen some rough
estimates that might involve and an investment of $1 million dollar plus per school but could save $125,000.00
plus per year after that investment is made.
But as we sort of began to talk about that project or that idea the energy manager would be able to work in detail
to design the project that would work for the school, that would maximize the energy savings while at the same
time accommodating the needs of each group at the schools. Enough light for the teachers, the students and it
needs to be a very detailed examination of each building to determine exactly which lights should be converted
and what is the best project and to define the project and then put it out to bid or work with a private provider to
undertake a project which we define. So | think that’s when we get the energy manager on board what we will
try to work on with the School Department.
Alderman O’Brien
Thank you Madam Chair, President. | would like to ask Ms. Chisolm a question, perfect for you because you
are in charge of the dam project and everything. How does this effect the State as far as the net metering, kind
