City staff outlines geothermal lease option, EV charging plan and landfill work

Scott, a city staff member presenting the staff report, told the Sustainability Advisory Commission the city is finalizing parts of its 2025 annual report and is evaluating several energy and infrastructure projects. “We are working on our annual report for calendar year 2025,” Scott said, and he promised to email finished pages on water consumption and street trees to commissioners the next day.

On building the city fleet’s EV charging infrastructure, Scott said public works will construct a secure, fleet-only charging station with five charge points at opening and design capacity to expand to 10. He described the facility as “behind the fence” with no credit-card terminal, intended for city vehicles only, and said the initial chargers will target passenger cars, small trucks and utility vans rather than heavy equipment. “As those [vehicles] cycle out, we want to catch those and convert them,” Scott said.

Scott also briefed commissioners on solar for two new fire stations, saying the city will select an engineering/architecture firm to design roof-mounted arrays and then bid the installation later this year. He said the buildings’ geothermal heating and cooling complicate design and require specialized engineering.

Regarding the city’s closed landfill, Scott reported that staff replaced a problematic sampling well and plan to carry out well-abandonment work before the close of the fiscal year on the Champaign–Urbana solid-waste disposal side of the site. He explained abandonment usually involves sealing the casing with bentonite rather than full removal, and said additional regrading and vegetation control projects are planned.

On geothermal, Scott said staff are exploring emerging geothermal-lease products to determine whether a 2026 bulk geothermal purchase or lease program could work. He explained residential tax credits for geothermal were eliminated, while a 30% federal commercial geothermal tax credit remains. Under one vendor model, a commercial owner would install geothermal at a residence, claim the commercial credit, and lease the system back to the homeowner; at lease end the owner would typically exercise a nominal buyout so the homeowner becomes the owner of the equipment. “It might be interesting enough to try that angle and see if community members are interested,” Scott said.

Scott and commissioners also discussed stacking incentives: the 30% commercial credit plus a possible 10% domestic-content bonus and, where eligible, a further 10% energy-community bonus could substantially reduce upfront costs and lease rates. He noted staff are also checking how the federal definitions of “energy community” map to the local area.

Finally, Scott said U-Cycle will run a spring curbside bag-leaf collection the week of April 13 and reminded commissioners the next SAC meeting is April 7 at 7 p.m. He said recycling data from vendors will feed the city’s greenhouse-gas accounting for the annual report and that licensed haulers are required by ordinance to provide annual waste data.