Baytown Township is adding rooftop solar to power the township’s community center.
A crew from All Energy Solar this week installed solar panels on the roof of the Baytown Community Center, located at 4020 McDonald Dr. N.
The township board voted unanimously in September to have the solar panels installed.
The township received a grant from the Minnesota Department of Commerce’s Solar on Public Buildings Program to fund the $28,615 installation, said Avis Peters, a township board member who spearheaded the project.
The grant is covering 50 percent of the cost of the installation. Forty percent of costs will be covered by federal “direct pay” tax credits (30 percent from Investment Tax Credit and 10 percent for using domestic content materials). The remaining 10 percent – $2,862 – will be covered by the township, Peters said.
Payback, then savings
The installation of the 8.5-kW solar array will reduce the township’s energy costs and help reduce electricity-based greenhouse gas emissions, said Peters, who has had a ground-mounted solar array on her four-acre property since 2017.
“My solar array paid for itself in about four years,” she said. “There will be a two-year payback for our Baytown solar investment, and then we will have free community center electricity for 40-plus years, the life of solar panels. That amounts to $141,000 in savings.”
The township’s system is expected to be delivering power to the community center by early spring, Peters said.
“Solar produced electricity is much better for the environment because we’re not burning any fossil fuel (coal, oil or natural gas), nor using nuclear power to get our electricity,” Peters said.
Electric overproduction from the solar array will be automatically exported to the electric grid, and “Xcel Energy will pay us for that extra electricity at the rate they charge to other customers,” Peters said. “That’s another benefit of this program.”
Solar on Public Buildings program
The Solar on Public Buildings program launched in April 2024, and 187 projects – spread across 71 local units of government – have thus far received grants, said Lissa Pawlisch, assistant commissioner of the Division of Energy Resources at the Minnesota Department of Commerce. The total amount of grants given to date: about $14.7 million, she said.
An additional 45 projects have been approved and are currently moving through the grant-contracting process, Pawlisch said. No additional funding rounds are expected, she said.
The program “is about more than clean energy — it’s about investing in our communities,” Pawlisch said. “By putting solar on fire stations, wastewater-treatment facilities, libraries and other public spaces, we’re reducing energy costs, creating local jobs and demonstrating Minnesota’s commitment to a sustainable future.”
Other east-metro projects of note: Bayport Public Works Building; Falcon Heights City Hall; Little Canada City Hall; Mahtomedi Public Works Building; Roseville Booster Station; St. Anthony Village Public Works Building; St. Paul North End Community Center; St. Paul Animal Services; St. Paul Fire Station No. 3; Hamline-Midway Library; Shoreview Water Treatment Plant; South St. Paul City Hall; Vadnais Heights City Hall, and the Washington County Emergency Housing Services Building.
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