Special Bd. of Aldermen — 08/06/2019 Page 11
Alderman Clemons
Ok thank you.
Aldermen Jette
So is the purpose to provide the electrical for the electrical needs of the building on which the solar panels sit
more than generating electricity that could be used elsewhere. | mean I’m wondering why we are putting them
on buildings to begin with, | mean why not put them on like a solar farm, on land. You’d avoid all the problems
with roofs and whether the building can support it and all that stuff.
Mr. Weeks Good questions; we do all of the above. The value of doing rooftop solar is that when you use that
power onsite, beyond the meters sort to speak, you are off-setting full retail priced electricity, power you would
otherwise have to buy from the utility at that moment in time. In practical terms that can mean a premium on a
per kilowatt hour basis of anywhere from 10 to 30%. So it is higher value when used onsite. That said, naturally
when you have multiple acres to work with you get terrific economies of scale and the build costs do come down
commensurate with that. We are pleased to be in discussion, it is still fairly early stage that Deb has facilitated
with the Nashua Airport Authority which has several unused acres to the far west of the runway and that is
certainly a possibility for 2019 where the City could generate multiple megawatts of power to offset the
equivalent of dozens of buildings.
Alderman Jette
Thank you.
Alderwoman Kelly
Yes so you mentioned a couple of times the small customer and | was just wondering is that per each project or
is it combined, if we add more do we end up above that at some point.
Mr. Weeks It is strictly on a per-meter basis. So if a building had multiple meters you could have multiple small
customer generators at that site. So it would not be impacted by adding any future projects in the City.
Alderman Laws
First of all thank you guys this is awesome, what you are doing is can’t be overstated how important the work
you are doing is and | appreciate it. That being said, | am kind of dumb and | have a couple of questions. So
you kind of answered the question | had about snow and it is surprising that there is not technology that exists
that melts the snow off of the solar panel. Does that exist, is it just cost prohibitive?
Mr. Hasselbeck Sure great question and we go back and forth all the time. Long story short, it is not
worthwhile. So there are products and technologies out there which utilizes you know low voltage current to get
up there and melt the snow to keep the snow off the arrays. But as we all know as New Hampshire residents, in
the winter months, you know, December, January, February, that sun may be out two or three hours a day right.
So basically the energy and cost of that energy required to melt that snow is significantly less than the additional
electricity that you would get from having clear solar panels through that time of the year.
