Ten years into Havre de Grace’s proactive approach to use solar power as its main energy source to power 45 city-owned buildings — including City Hall, the police station, the water treatment plant, the lighthouse and more — it’s seeing real savings and passing them onto residents.

Mayor Bill Martin says the city saves more than $380,000 annually on electric, and without those savings it would have to increase residents’ property taxes by 2 cents per $100 of assessed value.

Some of the city’s most historic landmarks and vital infrastructure have run on solar since 2015, when Martin and his administration received a grant to build the 20-acre Perryman solar farm. The project cost the city nothing to implement, but required Havre de Grace to lock into a set commercial power rate cost of 6.5 cents per kilowatt-hour, for 21 years.

“At the time about 10 years ago, it was a good deal,” Martin said. “Today, it’s an amazing deal.”

The city’s rate change came at a time when the city was paying a commercial rate of 12.5 cents per kilowatt-hour to power its 45 buildings. Almost instantly after reducing the rate by half, the city saw a cost savings of about $190,000 in its energy expense.

Ten years later — with the average commercial electric rate in Maryland at 13.4 cents per kilowatt-hour — the city observed a cost savings of about $385,000, which is about the same amount the city spends on annual street paving and resurfacing.

“Being able to cut that commercial rate to 6 cents is huge, and there is no carbon footprint because we run on the sun,” Martin said. “Everything we do, we try to do smart, efficient, and we try to do with 21st century thinking to minimize our impact on the Chesapeake Bay.”

Chris Ricci, the city’s director of administration, noted that the cost savings also allow the city to avoid raising residents’ water rates, as electricity for the city’s water infrastructure is generated from the solar grid.

“A lot of the big users of the city’s electricity are the city’s production of water and treatment of wastewater,” Ricci said. “If we didn’t have this type of deal, we’d have to pay for it and in order to continue to do what we do and that would mean to increase taxes and fees for water.”

Despite having solar capabilities, the 45 solar-powered buildings are about 75% of the city’s total real estate portfolio, since the city acquired new buildings such as the STAR Centre after to the solar grid was built.

The solar grid produces about 5.1 million kilowatt-hours of electricity, which is about 2 million short of the city’s 7 million kilowatt-hour usage.

When the city uses more power than its solar farm can generate, the overflow kilowatt-hour usage is billed to the city at the going commercial electric rate — meaning that the city pays more than 13 cents for about 2 million kilowatt-hours of electricity, but only 6.5 cents for each of the 5.1 million solar kilowatt-hours.

Ricci said the city is actively working to secure grant funding to build solar panels to achieve 100% solar autonomy, and is looking for creative ways to implement solar panels throughout the city.

One idea city officials are looking into is covering the STAR Centre parking lot with a canopy-like structure and mounting solar panels on top. Ricci said the solar panels would be used to power the STAR Centre, Harris Field and other facilities, but would require cooperation between the city and Harford County Public Schools since the school system owns the parking lot.

Adding the STAR Centre to a solar power grid would not only power the building, but would also mean the city’s “Ride the Tide” trolley service would be 100% solar powered as well, since the trolleys are charged at the STAR Centre.

Similarly, Havre de Grace uses two small GEM Electric Vehicles to transport city workers. Based on the wattage of the vehicles and the fact that they are charged at City Hall, which uses solar power, city officials calculated that the vehicles operate for approximately 1 cent per mile.

“It is significant savings and the most important thing is that it is zero carbon emissions,” Martin said. “Our goal ever since we took over in 2015 has been trying to carefully walk that line of moving Havre de Grace deep into the 21st century while still keeping that historic colonial charm to it and we have been doing it.”

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