Bend Bus Stop Shelters Poised for Solar Treatment

 

According to The Bulletin . . . .The arched roof and buttressed red walls of the crane shed may again grace Bend’s Old Mill District with six new bus shelters on Bond Street commemorating the historic building. The original crane shed was used to store lumber during Bend’s mill days and was one of the last vestiges of the community’s timber-fueled past. The city has since decided to build bus shelters to preserve the memory of the now demolished crane shed.

The chosen design is the “most literal interpretation” of the submitted proposals for bus stops reminiscent of the historic building. The bus shelters will include benches, solar-powered lighting and transparent wall panels to provide protection from the elements, according to the design proposal.

Bulletin Uses Solar Power to Lecture City Councilors

The Bulletin, a conservative-leaning newspaper with a small town attitude even though Bend is no longer nearly as small as it was just 10 years ago, took upon itself to use solar power to lecture the current City Council to “exercise a high degree of fiscal sanity and resist being blinded by the prospect of achieving environmental stardom.”

Maybe The Bulletin should take their own advice and “exercise a high degree of editorial sanity and resist being blinded by the prospect of achieving ideological stardom”?  The author of the editorial obviously did not do his homework.  Had he done even a small bit of investigation (see “Central Oregon Solar Progress is Happening . . . Slowly” below)  he might not have written the unfairly slanted and amazingly poorly written op-ed piece reprinted below. (And what editorial writer uses the word “whatever” in their editorial?)

     From The Bulletin’ Editorial Page – Sunday, December 16, 2007:

Think before acting on solar power plan

When it comes to generating solar power, it can never be too sunny. When it comes to spending public money on politically popular projects, however, an excessively sunny outlook can be a liability. It can leave taxpayers badly burned.

City councilors in Redmond and Bend should keep this in mind. both cities, determined to be good stewards of the environment, are weighting the installation of solar-generation arrays at sewage-treatment plants. Such projects presumably would echo the complicated arrangement by which Bend’s parking garage will support a large solar array.  The garage project will provide the city with cheap, green power, and it will allow project investors to cash in on tax credits and other incentives dangled by state and federal governments.

Quibble with the wisdom of using public funds to expand the use of a relatively expensive energy source if you like.  but these subsidies were created by state and federal lawmakers, and local solar schemes in Bend and Redmond would simply use those incentives as their creators intended them to be used.

Central Oregon Solar Progress Happening…..Slowly

Although the following article from The Bulletin is a bit of a “puff piece” and includes a few “soft facts” and incomplete explanations of how things actually work, it’s good to see The Bulletin take the time to print this important solar energy story and actually put it on the front page – ”above the fold” even.

The article also alludes to the challenges skeptics bring when new ideas – especially those that might rub the skeptic the wrong way ideolically – are presented.  But many other similar solar energy projects have been built and are successfully operating so hopefully the skeptics will be brought around.

     From The Bulletin – December 13, 2007:

Bend and Redmond look at solar energy for city projects

The roof of Bend’s parking garage may be just the beginning of solar power for city government for Central Oregon.

SunEnergy Power Corp., the Bend company that will install the panels on top of the downtown garage, has recently been pitching to cities around the state, including Bend and Redmond, the idea of running wastwater treatment plants on solar energy.

Proposed Central Oregon Community College Allied Sciences Building Gets Solar Grant

Pacific Power, through its Blue Sky renewable energy program, recently awarded Central Oregon Community College a $160,000 grant that will help pay for a solar array on top of the proposed Allied Sciences Building.

The grant will help fund a 62-kilowatt solar photovoltaic array atop the three-story building.  Assuming a successful November 2008 bond measure vote, construction could begin in 2010. The building would be dedicated to science and health career education and house classes on renewable energy studies. The building itself will be as energy efficient as possible and model renewable energy values.

The students of COCC have dedicated a portion of their fees to ensure that by using Blue Sky, the college buys renewable power equal to 100 percent of COCC’s electricity use. COCC was the first community college in the nation to take such a step.

Bend’s Downtown Parking Garage Gets Solar Power

Although this project has been talked about for some time, city officials say they have finalizing the design of the city of Bend’s first solar energy project.

Work is expected to begin next spring on the project that will sit on top of the Centennial Parking Plaza at 61 NW Oregon Avenue. The city is using a $400,000 grant from Pacific Power’s Blue Sky Projects the city and is partnering with Bend-based SunEnergy Power Corporation to set up the 200 kW project.

With nearly 20 rows of solar panels mounted to steel trusses above the entire top level of the garage, the system will be one of the largest solar installations in Oregon.

SunEnergy, who will own the system, will bear the entire cost of buying, installing and maintaining the solar array, which will produce about 280,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity per year. That energy, enough to power about two dozen homes continuously, will be sold directly to the city.

Solar Power on top of Bend’s New Downtown Parking Garage

Tax credits may heat up solar energy use in Bend
SunEnergy plans to give credits back to investors
By Chuck Chiang - The Bulletin - August 16. 2006

With federal and state tax incentives available, the proposed $1.8 million solar power structure on top of Bend’s downtown parking garage could be the catalyst that spurs the region’s renewable energy development, government and business officials say.

Executives from Bend-based SunEnergy Power Corp., the company proposing the project, said they moved the nonprofit firm from the San Diego area partly to take advantage of the Business Energy Tax Credits provided by the Oregon Department of Energy.

With the state incentives and tax credits offered by the federal government, SunEnergy plans to build the project using investors’ funding, then returning those tax credits to the investors. The city of Bend would pay only for the energy generated by the solar cells, not construction or maintenance costs.