The Warren Sentinel

April 15, 2010

Town rejects RFPs for solar farm

By Brooke Frick

In one fell swoop, plans and talk of plans for a solar farm in Front Royal were brought to a halt after a unanimous vote by town council to reject all recently received requests for proposals.  The resolution was passed without any discussion.

On December 21, 2009 town council issued a request for proposals for solar energy, using engineering and consulting firm GDS Associates to gather and compile proposals.  Although the town has not received an invoice yet, they have anticipated $100,000 as the cost for the services said Finance Director Kim Gilkey-Breeden.

Three months after issuing the request, council was presented with 39 proposals gathered by GDS at their March 15 work session.  GDS ranked the proposals based on cost, naming the top three as Standard Energy, LLC, Solbridge Energy and NovaSol energy.

Their prices for solar energy started at $92.67per megawatt hour with a two percent increase over a twenty year period averaging out at 129.97 per megawatt hour.  Currently, town residential customers pay $.0849 per kilowatt hour, or $84 per megawatt hour.

As stated in the resolution, the price per megawatt hour of electricity “was more than the town expected and far more than the Town currently pays for coal-fired generated electricity, thereby placing an extra price burden on the town’s electric customers…”

Prior to Monday’s vote, the council held a closed meeting on March 29 to discuss the requests for proposals for solar energy.  While town Attorney Tom Robinett said there were a few other minor things addressed during last month’s closed session on solar energy, the increased price to town customers was the deciding factor in rejecting all proposals.

When asked if the town could have counter offered to receive solar energy only during peak consumption hours to lower the cost of electricity, Robinett said they may have been able to negotiate terms, but essentially they got what they asked for in the proposals.

Recently, the Front Royal Warren County Economic Development Authority set the terms of a lease with SolAVerde Inc, for the possible development of a solar farm on 45.5 acres of the former Avtex property.

However, they have a way to go as the Environmental Protection Agency and FMC Corporation must approve the terms of the lease before either party can sign.

As for what’s next for the town Mayor Eugene Tewalt said,” We don’t know. We just rejected the requests for proposals because the price was too high.”

When asked if the town was still interested in solar power he added,”Oh we’re still interested, but not at those rates.”