Erin council has approved a renegotiated contract with Guelph Solar for a solar panel project at Centre 2000.
Anton Lamers of Guelph Solar asked council on March 21 to reconsider the original 2015 contract, for which the town acted as landlords for a 250kw capacity project on the roof of Centre 2000.
The town declined taking an equity position of 49% but entered into an agreement in October 2015 with SunShareLP (Guelph Solar) that would pay the town $10,000 per year plus CPI (consumer price index) increases for 20 years.
“We are ready to file essentially for building permits, if we so decided to do so,” said Lamers.
He suggested council get rid of the CPI portion of the agreement or consider a 49% equity position, stating the financial return of the project is low at six per cent.
Mayor Allan Alls said he would like the project to go ahead and suggested capping the CPI at 2% per year.
“We had already forecasted the CPI to be about 1.5% over the two years and so what we could potentially look at is potentially lowering that to 1% CPI or possibly 10,000 or $10,500 flat rate over the 20 years,” said Lamers.
Some councillors shared their frustrations with renegotiation.
“We can’t lose sight of the fact that we’re still receiving $10,000 a year for the next 20 years,” said councillor Jeff Duncan.
Yet he added, “It is kind of frustrating hearing – literally at the 11th hour, that we’re having to give up our piece of the pie here to allow the investors to have a little bit more.”
Council agreed to decline the offer of an equity investment.
“A direct investment for us is just not in the cards for us at this time,” said Alls.
After discussion with Lamers and town director of finance Ursula D’Angelo, council unanimously agreed to amend the contract to cap the increase year over year at 1%.
Councillor John Brennan was absent.
