Greater than three years right into a groundbreaking settlement, this spring ought to convey solar energy to one of many Fairfax County services for the primary time.
The county has 30 websites lined up for photo voltaic panels beneath an influence buy initiative (PPA) that was billed as the biggest ever by a Virginia locality when it was introduced in December 2019.
Subsequently, lease negotiations with the corporate contracted to put in and function the panels stalled, forcing the county to begin from scratch with a distinct supplier in July 2021.
“With the pandemic, there are provide chain points inside the photo voltaic business and the price of some building supplies has elevated,” mentioned John Morrill, the division supervisor of the Workplace of Atmosphere and Vitality Coordination (OEEC) for of innovation and sustainability. “The county has negotiated and accepted revised pricing from distributors. Nevertheless it’s nonetheless a problem, and the scale of the system continues to be vital to make the numbers work for each events.
Though the PPA initiative stays in place, the county can be on the lookout for different choices to outfit its properties for solar energy – particularly, incorporating them into new building initiatives or enlisting vitality service firms to make vitality effectivity upgrades.
The photo voltaic venture anticipated to be accomplished first will come from the final contractor employed to construct the Sully Group Heart, which opened within the Dulles space on September 17.
The contractor is at present acquiring permits for the photo voltaic photovoltaic panels, placing set up on observe to be accomplished in Might, based on the Fairfax County Division of Public Works and Environmental Providers.
The final contractor’s route can even guarantee the brand new Seven Corners Hearth Station could have photo voltaic panels when it opens in spring 2024. The prevailing station on Sleepy Hole Street was demolished final month.
Tasks are additionally in numerous phases of improvement for the Woodlawn and Reston hearth stations, the Spring Hill Recreation Heart in McLean, and the Pender constructing, which hosts the Housing and Group places of work. Growth of the county.
For the websites, the county will buy photo voltaic panels from vitality service firms employed to put in them together with different effectivity upgrades. The fireplace stations are within the closing design phases with goal supply dates of August, whereas the Spring Hill venture is in engineering design and scheduled for completion in winter 2024.
The county is focusing on October for the Pender constructing improve, which is “extra sophisticated,” Morrill mentioned. Along with a rooftop photo voltaic array, the venture will retrofit the ability’s lighting and substitute different infrastructure, based on a allow overview.
“This mixture of strategies offers the county probably the most flexibility, as a result of smaller techniques…do not match the PPA mannequin,” Morrill mentioned.
Within the PPA mannequin, the county contracts with a photo voltaic supplier to put in, function and keep the photo voltaic panels. The county just isn’t liable for any of these upfront prices, but it surely should pay the supplier and utility for the electrical energy produced by the panels.
Based on Morrill, such agreements are most engaging to distributors for giant initiatives, such because the one deliberate for the I-95 Landfill Advanced in Lorton. The array will occupy 40 hectares of land and is anticipated to generate 5 megawatts of electrical energy.
By comparability, the Sully Group Heart venture will generate 180 kilowatts, and Morrill estimates the panels accepted for Annandale Excessive College — Fairfax County Public Colleges’ first PPA venture — will generate about 600 kilowatts.
The landfill venture is within the design part, which is anticipated to begin in 2024 and finish in 2025, based on the OEEC.
Morrill mentioned the county is planning photo voltaic panels at “a number of different services” via the PPA initiative or vitality effectivity upgrades, but it surely’s too early to estimate any timelines.
Regardless of these initiatives within the works, Fairfax County has some catching as much as do within the race of transition to wash and renewable vitality. Whereas its greenhouse emissions from vitality use have decreased since 2019, the provincial authorities nonetheless has some methods to go to attain the aim of carbon neutrality by 2040.
In the meantime, neighboring Arlington County introduced final week that its operations at the moment are operating completely on renewable vitality sources.
