View the Full Article

Milton Independent

January 9, 2013
By Courtney Lamdin

Commuters through Milton’s town core may have noticed the beginning of a new development on Centre Drive. Those steel poles sticking out of the ground will soon hold 198 solar panels to power Milton Family Practice. The nearly $200,000 array will cover 40 percent of the Fletcher Allen Health Care practice’s energy needs, site supervisor Holly Van Winkle said.

Each 2-by-3-foot module generates nearly 300 watts, giving a total capacity of 56.4 kilowatts, said Jim Goldsmith, Fletcher Allen senior project manager. The stationary panels will be installed on five racks.

The Public Service Board, which oversees large and small energy projects, approved the panels on November 28. It’s a net-metering system, meaning any energy produced beyond what the user needs is fed back into the grid. Utilities also award a 6-cent-per-kilowatt-hour credit for every hour generated, as per state law. Because they’re regulated by the PSB, solar projects don’t need local permits. But Goldsmith did consult town planners to see if the project conflicted with their goals.

The town core is designed for the highest density in Milton, and where there are solar panels, there’s less room for commercial or residential properties or roads, Planning Director Katherine Sonnick said. The town owns a partial easement from Vermont Federal Credit Union, the bordering property, and so asked Milton Family Practice to shift the panels closer to its own building, allowing for any future roads. The practice gladly obliged.

“It’s probably not ideally what we’d like to see, but it’s not a bad thing,” Sonnick said, confirming the town’s 2013 Comprehensive Plan expresses support for renewable energy projects. Goldsmith said Milton’s family practice is one of Fletcher Allen’s only viable sites for its solar venture, because the hospital owns the land, an empty field.

“It makes sense for us to be investing in capital equipment in that location,” Goldsmith said.

The idea originated from an energy study that also recommended making the building weather-tight. That work was done last year and eliminated one-fifth of its air leakage, the project manager said. In that sense, Milton’s local doctor’s office has become a test tube for the hospital’s overall green goals. It eventually hopes to make Milton Family Practice carbon neutral. But covering just under half of the location’s energy needs is a good start. By contrast, the same solar install would cover just a fraction of 1 percent of the downtown Burlington facility, Goldsmith said.

Milton Family Practice has far fewer machines than the big hospital; the only real “energy hog,” Goldsmith said, is an X-ray machine. Goldsmith estimates it will take 10 years for the array to pay for itself, and because it’s a nonprofit, Fletcher Allen doesn’t benefit from typical tax credits for renewable energy projects. Asked why it’s worth it, then, Goldsmith said the array fits with Fletcher’s philosophical goal of combating climate change. “The hospital wants to do the right thing,” he said.

Fletcher Allen could pursue other financing arrangements for future projects, Goldsmith added. Some nonprofits find investors eligible for federal credits to fund them, then take out a loan and pay investors back. He noted Milton Family Practice is the only office slated for these upgrades, but if the hospital decides to build new offices, they’d incorporate solar as a basic spec. “We’re trying to do our part of being good stewards,” Goldsmith said. “Where we can make it good, the right thing, within the budgets we have, we’re going to do it.”

Milton’s project, installed by White River Jct.-based groSolar, will be completed on Mother Nature’s schedule, hopefully by mid-February, Goldsmith said. Work began December 30. Van Winkle noted the project won’t impact patients’ experience, besides becoming a conversation starter, as it already has.

Source: Milton Independent