Lazaro Aleman
ECB Publishing, Inc.
The Jefferson County Jail is slated to get a solar array installed atop its roof in the coming weeks, the first project to come to fruition as a result of the agreement between local officials and representatives of NextEra/Gulf Powers.
Planning Official Shannon Metty, who has been acting as the county’s liaison with the energy company, informed the Jefferson County Commission of the solar project on Thursday evening, Dec. 3.
Metty said the plan was to install a 39-panel solar array on the jail’s rooftop, which would provide 54 kilowatts of solar energy and save the county $3,500 annually in electric bills.
She said that the value of the equipment and installation was $151,000, which Gulf Power, a subsidiary of NextEra, would absorb.
“Minimum rooftop preparation will be required,” Metty said. “The company is ready to go.”
Speaking to the commission virtually, Timothy Bryant, director of external affairs and new development for NextEra, affirmed Metty’s representation.
Bryant said the actual cost of the system was $151,574, adding that his company was willing to go over the $150,000 promised in the agreement if necessary. His company, he said, was also ready to proceed with the project as soon as possible.
“We’re ready to start the work next week,” Bryant said.
He said that it might require making some adjustments to the roof to accommodate the array. But if such were the case, it wouldn’t stop the work.
“If we find issues with the roof we will make the necessary repairs and we’ll adjust within the $150,000 committed,” Bryant said.
He called the transaction an all transfer contract.
“We performed all the work as a turnkey operation on our nickel, and upon completion we turn it over to the county,” Bryant said of the installation project.
Sheriff Mac McNeill wanted to know what the annual cost of maintaining the system would be.
Bryant assured him that maintenance would be minimal, requiring possibly the tightening of bolts every six months or so. He said 30 years was the expected life of such systems, and they often exceeded that.
Commissioner J. T. Surles asked about the effects of pollen on the panels, given the heavy concentration of pollen here at certain times of years.
Bryant suggested that the solar panels were self-cleaning, with the help of rain.
He said that pollen and pollution had been a problem in the past, but the type of glass now used, combined with the system’s angle assisted the cleaning process, along with rain.
He suggested that the county might want to put the annual savings from the system in a trust fund that would serve for the purchase of a replacement system in 30 or so years, especially as industry improvement were resulting in ever more efficient and less costly systems.
Bryant also promised to provide the commission with the result of an energy audit that his company conducted of four county-owned buildings with the aim of helping reduce energy costs. That presentation was expected to come on Thursday, Dec. 17.
The solar array and energy audit are part of the $3.3 million in direct and service contributions that the energy company committed to earlier in the year in exchange for the county rescinding an ordinance that sought to regulate high-voltage transmission lines.
NextEra, through its Gulf Power subsidiary, is in the process of installing a 176-mile 161kV transmission line that will stretch from Columbia County to Jackson County and cross Jefferson County from east to west.
The agreement that NextEra and Jefferson County negotiated calls for the energy company to provide $215,000 for energy and conservation; $500,000 for parks and recreation; $500,000 for public works; and $2 million for emergency management.