Keene advances plan for up to 5.5 MW airport solar farm; committee recommends bonding resolution

The Keene Finance, Organization and Personnel Committee advanced a proposed airport solar farm and unanimously recommended that the city manager draft a bonding resolution for further consideration by the full council.

Dan Weeks, vice president at Revision Energy, presented the project and financial assumptions. He described a fixed-tilt, community-scale solar installation at airport property south of the runway with a nameplate of approximately 5.5 megawatts DC (about 3.5 MW AC), roughly 9,000 panels, and expected annual generation of about 6.5 million kilowatt hours. "It's a cleared greenfield ... it's prime for this kind of development," Weeks said, noting the site faces height restrictions that limit other uses.

Revision estimated a turnkey upfront cost slightly north of $14,000,000 before tax incentives and projected the city could directly access a 30% investment tax credit via direct pay under recent federal provisions, lowering the net cost to about $10,200,000. Revision's financial modeling projected roughly $25,000,000 in savings over 25 years (and roughly $36,000,000 over a 40-year system life) under its assumptions; independent conservative analysis commissioned by the city produced lower but still substantial savings estimates (Beacon Integrated Solutions estimated a 30-year benefit in its base case of roughly $13,000,000 and about $8–8.5 million under a no-ITC scenario).

City staff and Revision discussed key timing constraints to preserve federal tax-credit eligibility (the Treasury Department's "beginning of construction" safe-harbor rules) and supply-chain timing; Revision advised an early procurement action (contract signature and a minimum 5% purchase order for components such as panels) to secure the tax credit and avoid foreign-supply restrictions that may take effect in the near term. The city manager told the committee staff had prepared both Revision's model and an independent financial review and recommended bringing a draft bond resolution forward for first reading so the process can proceed on the tight timeline if council chooses to pursue ownership.

The committee then moved to "recommend that the city manager draft a resolution for bonding for the airport solar project"; the motion was seconded and approved unanimously. Committee members and Revision noted remaining details to resolve, including final engineering, permitting, net-metering agreements with Eversource, operations-and-maintenance arrangements, and exact financing terms. Staff said they will return with more detailed financing and contract terms at the next FOP meeting and that the draft resolution would give the council first reading while preserving the committee's ability to evaluate final terms.

Action: Committee recommended drafting a municipal-bonding resolution to enable procurement and safe-harboring steps if the council elects to proceed; final procurement, borrowing and contract award require subsequent council approvals.