Silverton Sustainability Plan

Outcomes and Conclusions

The final solar project produces 45.38 MWh/year with a 25-year production warranty. The town hall uses under 40 MWh/year, so the array will likely produce net-positive energy generation. The LED streetlight upgrade has reduced Silverton’s monthly street lighting bill from $2,700 to $660, resulting in an annual savings of over $24,000. In combination, these projects will achieve their return on investment after 11 years. Due to the bond, Silverton will only pay $2,000 more annually until 2030, at which point they will see a savings of $28,000 annually in reduced electricity costs.

Both projects have been well received by residents and they have expressed excitement about future projects being undertaken by Silverton. Many residents have also adopted the use of the aggregation program, resulting in nearly 100 percent of Silverton’s energy coming from renewable sources.

In addition to these projects, Silverton has replaced several vehicles in their fleet with hybrids and plan to continue this work, with other transportation projects planned for 2021.

Challenges

While the creation of the plan itself and the installation of the energy-saving projects posed no barriers, the process of receiving reduced billing for the LED streetlights took several months and resulted in some challenges with the budget. Instead of metering, the energy utility serving Silverton calculates monthly costs with data that include the energy consumption of each streetlight, the hours of operation each day, and the total number of streetlights. When the LED upgrades were implemented, they were not altered in this modeling, resulting in a bill that did not decrease even when energy consumption dropped. While this was an unexpected challenge, the energy utility worked with Silverton to correct the lapse. Additionally, the strain was exacerbated by budget challenges created due to COVID-19 and likely would have been less impactful in a different year.

Takeaway Message

Tom Carroll, the Silverton Village Manager, shared, “Local governments spend such a large portion of their budgets on energy, and we can take tremendous steps to reduce our carbon footprint and save money. Our residents support these changes, and we should make them a priority.”

Project Resources

For more information on Silverton's efforts, contact:

Tom Carroll
Village Manager
Village of Silverton 
t.carroll@silvertonohio.us
513-792-6560