MAPLETON – Councillors were split at the last Mapleton council meeting about whether the municipality should explore a partnership with QPA Solar Inc.
On Oct. 27, QPA Solar president Marjan Stosic appeared before council at its first electronic meeting since the summer.
The company has provided engineering, installation, construction, operation and maintenance of solar panels since 2009.
Stosic was following up on a presentation to council last October regarding three options for Mapleton to embrace solar and reduce energy costs at four municipal buildings: the PMD Arena, Drayton fire hall, township office and the wastewater facility.
The three options included the municipality buying the solar system outright; QPA Solar running the system and selling the municipality power; or a joint venture partnership.
Stosic said he was contacted about a month ago and was told the municipality was interested in pursuing a joint venture and asked what it would look like.
However, as councillor Michael Martin pointed out, council didn’t give that direction.
“I’d certainly be happy to receive the information, I just think it warrants more discussion before we go to the partnership,” Martin said.
“I know council hasn’t spoken about this since the delegation last year and yet somehow between now and then there’s been an indication we want a partnership.
“But we haven’t really talked about it.”
CAO Manny Baron explained he was responsible for bringing the QPA Solar discussion back to council.
“Originally when we had the presentation it was kind of informally decided that we would wait until the water and waster water RFP (request for proposals) was complete,” Baron said.
“So now that that’s complete, I just thought it would be good to have them come back and refresh our memories, so that’s my doing.
“I apologize if we put you in a bad position. That wasn’t the intent. It was just to kind of refresh our memories and where we left off.”
Pursuing a joint venture with QPA Solar would allow the township to decide its involvement, Stosic explained.
“We’ve tried to give you a sliding scale to match your comfort level,” he explained.
The municipality and QPA Solar would have partial ownership of a new company that Stosic proposed would be called MQ Solar Company.
If the project cost $1 million and the township wants to be a partner, QPA Solar would secure a loan for $800,000 for the company and Mapleton and QPA Solar would cover $200,000, based on the agreed ownership portions.
For example, Mapleton would pay $100,000 for a 50 per cent ownership share.
MQ Solar Company would charge the municipality the same rates as the local distribution company (LDC), in this case Hydro One, Stosic said.
“In any venture you want to know and firm up everything, so if it’s the same rate, we know what the rate is, there’s no question what the rate is,” Stosic said.
“We know what it’s going to cost to run that company and both sides would know it because both sides are owners and both sides get issued financial statements and then we know the third thing – what are the savings.
“So we know the revenue costs, we know the actual operational costs and we know the actual savings.”
Each year the municipality will receive a rebate on hydro rates they pay to MQ Solar Company for whatever facilities take part in the program.
Stosic said that if the first year with solar Mapleton pays $100,520 in hydro, as it did last year, it would receive a 20% rebate equaling about $20,726. Over the first five years the municipality would be saving about 22% total and over the full 25-year agreement the municipality would be saving about 28% on electric bills or about $1.1 million.
Councillor Marlene Ottens asked what happens at the end of the 25-year agreement.
“We decide jointly, wrap it up, project’s finished, or let’s just give it to the municipality; there’s a number of options we can do and determinations we can do,” Stosic said.
“But the lifespan, the generating lifespan, is based on 25 years.”
He asked that Mapleton make a decision about whether to take another step in the process.
“Let’s move onto step number two and step two would be we would sign … a tentative agreement and then we’d proceed, we’d go out and … reconfirm those four sites, are there any other sites, let’s confirm the grid capacity, let’s confirm the costs, the business plan, you can confirm what participation level you’re comfortable on so that we have a full business case, business plan done,” he said.
QPA Solar would then return to council for a definitive agreement for the number of municipal sites to take part in the program and how much Mapleton would be willing to contribute financially.
Mayor Gregg Davidson read a resolution that stated, “The delegation of QPA Solar Inc. be received for information and that council directs the CAO to work with QPA Solar Inc. to create a partnership to explore bringing solar savings to Mapleton.”
However, Martin pointed out the second part of the resolution, directing the CAO to work with QPA Solar, wasn’t in the resolution circulated to councillors.
“I just added it in and we can take it out and just leave it as received for information if we want, but there’s no direction on here so I wanted council to discuss the direction if we want one,” Davidson said.
“The last time we had him here, the delegation, we just read it for information and then never looked at it again.
“We either need to direct our CAO and staff to investigate this or we just need to receive it for information again.”
Martin then asked whether the township was required to go through an RFP process.
“So if we wanted to we can certainly go through a request for proposal qualification,” Baron said.
“Based on the information in the presentation and the amount of our portion to be like $20,000, that’s within our procurement policy that we can make the call, but again it’s up to council.
“We can certainly go out to companies and see what kind of information we can gather.”
Councillor Paul Douglas said he shared similar concerns to Martin.
“I wasn’t prepared to make a decision today and to move forward,” he said. “I wasn’t thinking that’s part of it.
“I think it needs further discussion so I’d like to just receive it for information right now and then we can have another discussion as to how to move forward.”
Councillor Marlene Ottens thought it was time to go beyond just receiving the report for information.
“Would like to see a little more contractual style information,” she said.
“A little more, what’s in it for us? What’s in it for them? What it’s going to cost us, that sort of thing.
“I’m in favour of taking this to the next step.”
In the end council voted 3-2 in favour of the resolution directing the CAO to work with QPA Solar to create a partnership to explore bringing solar savings to Mapleton.
Martin and Douglas were opposed.
