Press release
The Wyoming County Board of Supervisors are inviting the public to a ribbon cutting for the County’s new 129 kW solar array that has been installed at the northern property line of the Wyoming County Highway Department, 4328 State Route 19 S, Silver Springs, NY 14550.
The ceremony will take place at 2:00 PM on Thursday, October 31, 2019.
“The solar array demonstrates the County’s commitment to utilize technology for the benefit of our residents,” said A. Douglas Berwanger, Chairman of the Board of Supervisors. “We are proud of the Clean Energy Community designation we earned, and the grant to install the solar array came to us because we responded immediately to take advantage of the opportunity.”
“To earn the CEC designation the County completed four “high impact” actions out of 10 NYSERDA suggested,” noted Bill Daly, Director of the Wyoming County Department of Planning & Development. “The four completed are: the use of the Uniform New York state Solar Permit by the County Building Codes Department, the installation of an electric vehicle charging station in the Village of Warsaw, renewable energy code training held for County officials, and the counties adoption of Open C-PACE financing for energy renovations and renewable energy projects.”
The county has membership in the Energy Improvement Corp., the group administering Open C-PACE energy loans statewide. The winning bidder of the County’s Request for Proposals to install the project was CIR Electrical from Buffalo. All four bid submissions were New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) certified commercial solar installers.
The total cost of the project was $207,000.00 all paid for with NYSERDA grants. The county received a $150,000 grant for becoming a New York State Clean Energy Community (CEC). CIR received an award of $57,000 as the installer of the solar array. Those amounts were fully contributed toward the cost of the project. The projected electric cost savings to the County from electric generated by the solar array is estimated to be $12,000.00 per year. A monitor to track the performance of the solar array is being installed in the lobby of the Wyoming County Agriculture & Business Center in the Village of Warsaw.
Daly also recognized the following individuals or groups who worked on the project: the Planning Committee of the Board of Supervisors; Sharon Griffith at NYSERDA; Todd Gadd the County’s Highway Superintendent; Don Roberts the County’s Chief Code Enforcement Officer; Alyssa Cutcliffe a County Zoning Enforcement Officer; Craig Bongiavanni the Sustainable Projects Manager for CIR Electrical; the Genesee Finger Lakes Regional Planning Council; Todd MacConnell the County’s Director of IT; and NYSEG.