ORANGE — Orange lucked out.
Just over five years ago, the town was negotiating the construction of a solar facility by the landfill, and the deal fell through. However, when a large solar facility in Warren needed a “municipal host” for 4 to 5 megawatts of electricity, National Grid had Orange in mind, and the town got the contract.
Five years in, Orange has saved hundreds of thousands of dollars in its role as municipal host by paying a negotiated rate much lower than the typical retail rate for electricity.
The contract lasts another 15 years, with the possibility of two five-year, optional extensions after.
According to Bob Michaud, of the Orange Energy Committee, the deal was a stroke of good luck, and the credits earned through the deal pay for 42 percent of the town’s electricity bill.
This year, the town’s net savings was $129,776.70, Michaud said — the net savings has been at least $100,000 for each of the prior contract years.
“It’s my fifth year I’ve done this, and it’s my pleasure each time that I’m always reporting good news,” Michaud said.
The electricity is supplied by “Warren C,” a 14 megawatt solar array facility. According to Michaud, Warren, as the facility’s “landlord,” was only able to take about 10 megawatts at the time contracts were drawn up.
Orange had just been informed by National Grid that building a solar facility in town wouldn’t happen without further investment in the electric company’s Wendell substation, and the electric company had no immediate plans to do that. However, there was still the need for a host for the remaining megawatts from Warren C. The result was fortuitous.
“They needed to come up with a host in a hurry, and they knew our phone number,” Michaud said. “That kind of took the sting out of not being able to build it at the landfill because we got a sweeter deal.”
Under the deal, Orange pays a fixed rate of 8 cents per kilowatt-hour — much less than normal wholesale electricity rates, which, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, are averaging just over 12 cents per kilowatt-hour in New England.
Much of the electricity produced at Warren C ends up — via the town of Warren — at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, but Orange’s portion of the electricity covers its 19 largest accounts, including the schools, all Water Department sites and the streetlights.
“In a way it’s almost like having solar installed on 19 of our town facilities. It’s as if we had solar panels on the top of Town Hall,” Michaud said. “They’re there, except you can’t see them because they’re really in Warren.”