Rutland
posted
Dec 19, 2012
The first major project aimed at making Rutland the solar
capital of New England has come on-line, with the transformation of
a long-troubled utility property that now generates clean,
renewable electricity.
"Creek Path Solar Farm, along with our investment in the new
Energy Innovation Center in downtown Rutland, is symbolic of the
rebirth that we are helping community leaders create for the city
of Rutland," Green Mountain Power President and CEO Mary Powell
said. "A year ago the site was an environmental liability;
today it's a state-of-the-art generation facility, and it's
contributing in a meaningful way to Rutland and Vermont as a whole
for the first time in decades.
"The Creek Path Solar Farm will be the first of many
projects in the coming months and years that will help revitalize
Rutland's economy while contributing to Vermont's renewable energy
goals," Powell said. "We are committed to helping Rutland
leaders reinvent the city through solar development, recruitment of
new businesses, and education, which will benefit the entire
state."
A public commissioning planned for Monday morning, Dec. 17, which
was to have included Mayor Chris Louras, local legislators and
leaders, and officials from SameSun of Vermont, which build the
project with help from Stafford Technical Center students, was
canceled due to the weather.
"The energy coming from these solar panels is just a small
percentage of the energy that GMP has shown over the last six
months," Louras said in a statement. "They have proven to be
a tremendous partner for the city, which we expect to turn into a
model for other Vermont communities to emulate."
The 150-kilowatt Creek Path Solar Farm, approved by the Vermont
Public Service Board barely seven weeks ago, was built on a former
brownfield and was completed two weeks ahead of schedule. The
project is nestled onto a GMP-owned 3-acre lot between West Street,
Cleveland Avenue and East Creek, adjacent to Rutland's new Creek
Path, for which the solar farm is named. The site housed an
old coal-to-gas plant at the turn of the 19th Century, but had sat
largely empty for several decades.
The project is part of GMP's plan to create and inspire
construction of enough solar to provide Rutland with the highest
solar reliance per capita of any city in the northeast. The
company is building its new Energy Innovation Center in the former
Eastman's Building, where it expects to develop new generation,
pilot new customer programs, efficiency ideas and educational
opportunities for students and customers statewide. GMP is also
recruiting new business such as Small Dog Electronics to locate in
Rutland. Vermont Energy Investment Corp. and Neighborworks of
Western Vermont announced plans to co-locate some staff at the EIC
last week.
GMP has also negotiated a 25-year lease on the former city
landfill on Gleason Road, where the company plans to build a
2-megawatt or larger solar farm, and will include solar arrays on
the roof of the company's planned Energy Innovation Center.
It is also working to inspire numerous companies to develop
projects in Rutland, in collaboration with GMP or
independently.
"While these projects are focused for now on Rutland, as we meet
our goals here and prove out various concepts through local pilot
projects, we expect to bring benefits statewide," said Steve
Costello, GMP's vice president for generation and energy
innovation. "What we do here will help customers across
Vermont."
Philip Allen, co-owner of SameSun, said the Creek Path Solar
Project required his six employees and four more hires lead by
Project Manager Phil Parrish, and 10 subcontracting companies, all
here in Vermont, were employed. "And we had the great help of
the students from Stafford Tech. The sun is a local resource
supplying clean energy, and solar creates important, good-paying
jobs," Allen said. "All of us involved with this GMP project, for
the decades ahead that this array will be providing power, will
look upon it with pride."
