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Committee awaits city energy-efficiency review before pursuing solar repairs or grant applications
Summary
The energy-efficiency subcommittee said it will wait for a city facilities audit before prioritizing repairs to solar installations and pursuing grant funding; members discussed federal grant windows and ROI modeling.
The committee’s energy-efficiency subcommittee said it is holding further action until the city’s contractor report on municipal buildings is complete and presented to the subcommittee.
Members said contractors inspected four or five large city facilities, including the utility building, the sewer plant and the recreation center, and also reviewed solar arrays that are currently offline at the community center (CAT) and the recreation center. The contractor’s forthcoming report is expected to include three-year models and return-on-investment projections that the subcommittee wants before recommending repairs or capital requests to the city.
Subcommittee members noted past missed grant opportunities and urged committee members to monitor resilience- and energy-related funding. One member said she has signed up for the South Carolina Office of Resiliency (SOR) newsletter and encouraged members to register for funding announcements. Members also discussed potential low-cost measures such as LED retrofits, but some speakers raised concerns about recent health-field research on LED lighting and asked the committee to consider human-health impacts alongside energy savings.
The subcommittee asked to have the contractor present its findings to the committee when the report is available so members can assess cost-effectiveness, lifespan of existing equipment, and whether repair or replacement would be the most economical path.
