Meridian High School Solar Now Online; Which City Building Is Next?
Meridian High School’s new solar power project was celebrated with a ribbon cutting on Dec. 5.
As detailed in an earlier blog post, the project includes 818 panels occupying 65,000 square feet of roof space that are projected to supply roughly 20 percent of all the power used by the school.
Public officials, project personnel and members of the school community at the ribbon cutting for the new solar power system on the roof of Meridian High School. Photo courtesy of Madison Energy.
Solar panels now occupy most of the rooftop of Meridian High School.
Falls Church City is updating plans for capital investments and considering adding solar panels on other City-owned buildings but has not yet funded the projects. Last year’s Capital Improvement Plan, or CIP, describes the potential work. A total of eight systems are being considered. That would provide about 7 percent of the overall electricity needs for those buildings, reduce greenhouse gas emissions from City operations, diversify the City's energy sources, and generate more than $1 million in cost savings over the 25-year lifespan of the systems.
The schedule outlined in the CIP assumes a four-year deployment:
FY 2024: Aurora House and Jessie Thackrey
FY 2025: Community Center and Oak Street Elementary
FY 2026: City Hall, Mary Riley Styles Library, and Mount Daniel Elementary
FY2027: Mary Ellen Henderson Middle School
The estimated cost for completing system installations totaled $822,250. The Falls Church Climate Action Network will continue to encourage the City to provide the funds to make these investments a reality.
In 2022, 69 percent of Falls Church’s government and school greenhouse gas emissions were due to electricity use, and, as mentioned above, their rooftop solar potential might supply only a fraction of this. To decarbonize the rest, the City has allocated funding for a consultant to help assess the possibility of buying dedicated solar power from a site outside of the City. This could be similar to (but much smaller than) the arrangement that Arlington County has with Amazon and Dominion Energy. Something to watch for in the coming months!
Lastly, do you have a connection to a non-profit that owns property in the City? For the Meridian solar project to benefit from federal tax credits and depreciation rules, the School Board in 2022 entered into a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with a commercial entity. As of 2023, new tax laws allow local governments, schools, and other non-taxable entities to receive the tax-credit value directly from the IRS. This means non-profits can now receive a 30-40% rebate of their PV project costs without the challenges of finding a PPA partner. Even if they considered solar in the past, it may be time to take a fresh look. (The tax credit also applies to geothermal heat pumps.)