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Wednesday, August 27, 2008 Solar dishes mean Belen City Hall will go greenBelen Belen may soon have the first green city hall in New Mexico. The Belen City Council voted unanimously last week to accept an agreement with the State Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department for a $100,000 Clean Energy Grant. It will be used to set up cutting-edge solar electric concentrator dishes to be installed on the roof at city hall and will change the building's lighting to energy-efficient lamps, fixtures and occupancy sensors. "This will be the first solar town hall in the state as far as I know," said Ken Hughes of the state energy department. "The energy-efficient lighting fixtures to be installed will include motion sensors so they will shut off for light harvesting, so, if the sun comes out, the light will dim." The light fixture retrofit is cost-effective since the "payback is quick," Hughes said. Andrew DiCamillo, the city's planning and zoning director, said that the solar energy won't provide all of the city's electrical needs. "Right now, we don't have a figure. I don't think we'll know until we get these installed and running. We do expect a 40 percent savings overall," he said. "The requirement is for at least a 30 percent savings. We will realize that at least. All the new criteria energy efficiency codes require a 10 to 15 percent savings." The solar energy fixtures, ordered from a company in Spain, look something like satellite dishes. "Compared to the flat panel roof mount, they don't require battery storage," DiCamillo said in a telephone interview. "They take energy and light and transfer it into electricity and basically store it within themselves." They'll be located on the roof, out of the way of vandals and spray paint, he said, and will rotate, moving with the sun. "I'm still trying to understand exactly how it works," Decamillo said. "We have a printout, which helps, but it's pretty technical." Decamillo said $1 million in funding was offered by the state and about $40 million in requests came in. He said he thinks Belen got the grant because of its central location, its being on "the cusp of our boom in our region" and "most important is that we focused on an existing building and a lot of the other projects were really to just begin phasing of much larger projects. Our project begins and ends with what they've awarded us." Installation should begin in about October. In other action, the council:
Torres said that the request needed to be re-advertised. DiCamillo said that the annexation is part of the city's expansion of a crosswinds runway for Belen Alexander Municipal Airport. "The FAA (Federal Aviation Authority) requires we zone our own property ... as Special Use 1; all the private property will be C-1 (Commercial)," he said. After the property is annexed, the city's next step will be to seek funding for construction. "We're hoping, next year, that we can obtain funding through our Congressional delegates and state and local delegates," DiCamillo said. "Primarily, we want to be able to provide a crosswinds runway to make the airport more user-friendly and to allow safer, more appropriate landings, especially with the type of winds we have on the mesa. From an economic standpoint, having two runways gives us economic stimulus in terms of investors in avionics and aviation."
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