Center for Local Government working with Local Communities to Solarize Facilities

This guest blog post from a partner organization or individual reflects the work and opinions of the author and does not reflect action taken by Green Umbrella staff or board.

Guest Blog Author: T.J. White, Executive Director, Center for Local Government

Quick Summary:
Local governments from around Southwest Ohio are studying a joint bid to install roof mounted or ground mounted solar panels at their facilities (e.g. City Buildings, Fire Stations, etc.). This potential bid is in the study phase currently, but could be published this summer.

Small local governments in the Southwest Ohio region are considering a bid to provide on-site solar power to their facilities through a partnership with the Center for Local Government. The Center for Local Government (CLG) is a 501c3 organization that was formed in 1990 to provide opportunities for shared services, training, and information sharing between Southwest Ohio local governments. CLG currently has 59 member communities in the Cincinnati and Dayton areas.

This imitative began after the Village of Silverton successfully supplemented their Town Hall with roof mounted solar panels. Interest formed from other governments, and CLG began to facilitate a multi-government on-site solar installation bid. This bid is modeled after Silverton’s, but with benchmarking coming from the City of Cincinnati’s recent solar bid, Charlotte, NC’s solar bid, and from a bid template developed by the Rocky Mountain Institute. The governments are specifically bidding the design and installation of roof mounted or ground mounted solar arrays, which will be paid for out of capital or other funding sources. A Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) is not being used for this project.

As for the project’s status, a template for this bid is being finalized by the potential participants, who are working on putting together detailed specifications for each site. The goal is to publish a bid by this summer, with projects commencing late in 2022 or in 2023. We look forward to updating you again once we have a bid published and our participating governments finalized.