At last night’s school committee meeting, Bill Ritchie, newly appointed Director of Consolidated Facilities, and Matt Gilles, the schools Business Administrator,  presented not one but two proposal’s for solar energy that could save the school’s significant money.

Gillis and Ritchie were joined by Robert Patterson, a projet consultant.

One proposal calls for solar panels to be installed on school rooftops. There is no outlay required by the schools for the installation and Gillis in the presentation states that if operational by 12/11 and approved by NSTAR the costs avoided could be in the neighborhood of $55,000. The vendor would assume all responsibility of installation and maintenance. The vendor under consideration, Broadway Electric, is the vendor who managed the solar panel installation now in place at the Cunningham/Collicot.

Drawbacks to the plan are: increased weight on the roof (5-6 lbs per sq ft) and roof top repairs going forward would be labor intensive due to need to move panels as necessary. Gillis and Ritchie believe these can be mitigated with Structural Engineer Stamp and liability insurance and proper capital planning for roof repair.

The second proposal calls for offsite ground mounted panels in Norfolk MA. These panels when operational could allow the schools to see a 38.4% reduction in cost from the 18.5 cents budgeted per kilowatt-hour in 1/2012.

As with the roof proposal there would be no outlay required from the schools. The schools would be responsible for metering and purchase of total electricity produced by this project. Ms. Kelly asked if there might be energy produced that the schools could not consume. It is unlikely that the schools will not use all of it but should that be the case it is possible other town buildings can use the energy. Gillis and Ritchie have been consulting with Town Administrator Mearn.

Ms. Sheridan noted that it all sounded to good to be true: the schools will receive energy at a significantly reduced cost with no need to make an investment. Why? The answer to that is somewhat complicated. There are a number of grants and programs in place such as the Green Communities Act that significantly incent companies to build out solar infrastructure. The companies view the schools as an excellent client because unlike a commercial enterprise which may move or go out of business, schools do not.

Gormley noted that the fifth principle of the schools mission was innovation in education and cited this initiative as an example of innovation. Milton would be among the first to become involved in this sort of energy delivery solution.

The School Committee voted unanimously to move forward with both projects.

Other business included but was not limited to:

• Appointing Glenn Pavlicek as the Chairman of the School Committee and Denis Keohane as the Vice-Chair.