Sustainable Westchester, a consortium of local governments from Westchester County, New York, announced it has formed a Municipal Solar Buying Group. The organization has hired Structured Finance Solutions (a division of PNC Equipment Finance) and GP Renewables & Trading to advise it in developing solar photovoltaic (PV) systems at buildings across 17 of its member communities. The group has identified 75 public buildings and parking lots that could host PV and expects to develop over 100 sites by the end of 2016.
The systems will be financed through power purchase agreements with one or more developers who would own the projects, meaning that the municipalities would incur no up-front costs, and the projects would be cash flow positive from day one. Sustainable Westchester has issued a request for proposals due June 17 for PV financing, design, operations and maintenance of these systems.
In March, Energy Manager Today reported that Sustainable Westchester is also participating in a community choice aggregation pilot program whereby residential and commercial customers can pool their buying power into a single buying group.
