PUTNEY — The Selectboard voted last week to award a contract for a town photovoltaic system to Integrated Solar of Brattleboro.
The company has proposed to deliver 150 kilowatts of below-market-rate electricity for town and school use, and could shave $4,000 or so off Putney's energy bill.
Integrated's investors, Green Lantern Capital - which says on its website that it provides comprehensive project financing solutions and development consulting services to project owners, developers, vendors, and service companies in the distributed energy and real estate sectors - have until Oct. 15 to present Selectmen with proof of financing and negotiable terms.
A competing proposal, from Brattleboro-based Soveren Solar, was very close to what the Selectboard liked about the Integrated plan, but was edged out.
Selectboard Chair Josh Laughlin told representatives from both companies, who attended a special Selectboard meeting to make their final case on Sept. 4, that the board would explain its reasoning to both in a letter.
“I will also say this has been a more difficult process than we would have liked for it to have been. We're confident we would have gotten an excellent product either way,” Laughlin said.
The benefit to Green Lantern Capital, said Integrated representative Michael Wingham at a Selectboard meeting on Aug. 28, is in access to attractive tax credits if work is begun this calendar year. Even if that deadline is missed, he said, his investors would be eager to supply cheaper, net-metered electricity to Putney - or an alternative buyer - for decades.
“And when you move up from the 150 to the 500 kilowatt range, they're much more appetizing to the financing entities, so it's a really sellable deal,” Wingham said.
The Selectboard had scheduled the Sept. 4 special meeting in part because Laughlin was absent Aug. 28. The debate over which installer to go with took place in a closed executive session of 22 minutes, and the subsequent motion to award Integrated Solar the contract was unanimous.
On Aug. 28, Selectboard members and Town Manager Cynthia Stoddard peppered Wingham, and Soveren's founder, Peter Thurell, about their respective proposals. It seemed at the time that the benefit to the town under a comparison of the proposals was nearly identical, within a few hundred dollars.
Soveren's backers, LN Consulting of Winooski, said Putney would bear zero obligation to do anything but collect below-retail electricity for as long as it likes for up to 50 years, the expected life of the solar equipment.
“So could we get out of it any year we want to? Like, at the end of the first year if we say, No, we don't want it, this isn't for us?” said Stoddard.
Thurell replied: “Yes, but you're going to be getting electricity for less than the retail rate. It's hard for us to understand why you would ever want to get out of it. But if you do, you get out. We'll be happy to find somebody else who wants to get less-than-retail-rate electricity,” he said.
“That makes me a little uncomfortable. I have not heard of anybody willing to allow us to do that. That makes me ... I'm questioning it,” Stoddard said.
In contrast, Wingham pointed out his proposal asks the town to sign on for 20 years, with the option of renewing every five years.
Addressing Thurell, Wingham said, “These are substantial transactions, so it's hard for me to imagine that there's not terms, that there's not going to be a contract involved.”
To Selectmen, he added, “I feel we really try to make good efforts to present all the clear terms of the contract.”