By Noelle Edwards
nedwards@salisburypost.com
Two downtown Salisbury buildings will get solar panels if an environment-focused organization wins grants it recently applied for.
Students in Training and its environmentally focused arm, the Green Team, applied for North Carolina State Energy Office grants totaling $400,000. Half of that would go toward putting solar panels on First Baptist Church, and half would go toward putting solar panels on the building to become the Piedmont Players’ children’s theater.
The cost of outfitting just one of the buildings with solar panels would be $444,000, so the grant award wouldn’t pay even half of the project’s cost.
Charles Patton, founder of Students in Training, said he’s working with the children’s theater board to arrange the remainder of the funding for that project. He hasn’t found a way to fund the rest of the First Baptist project.
The $444,000 would fund the whole project, though, including installation.
Each building would be equipped with 540 panels, which would produce 57 kilowatts of power, a $12,000 to $14,000 return on the investment each year, Patton said.
In reality, the financial gains of solar panels can vary dramatically. If the building’s owner uses the energy produced, the gain is about 8 cents per watt. But the owner could also sell the energy back to Duke Power and earn 23 cents, Patton said.
Solar power is the best environmentally friendly energy for this area, Patton said. Geothermal energy is too expensive, he said, and wind power is not as readily available because Salisbury doesn’t get the constant blowing wind that areas of higher elevation or more toward the Midwest do.
Solar power works well here because almost half of the year has optimum conditions for harnessing the sun, and the rest of the time, solar panels can be tilted to catch as many solar rays possible, Patton said.
If the organization gets this grant, Patton said, it will find a few hundred other people in town who want to add solar panels to their buildings and will apply for a federal grant through the Department of Energy for $200 million.
Solar panels on the First Baptist building and the children’s theater would cut down on toxins in the air, Patton said, and he went so far as to say the move would help people with allergies and asthma ó in a small way. “If we get the $200 million grant, we could do it in a big way,” he said.
Several groups have expressed interest if Students in Training moves forward on the application for the larger grant.
Patton said Salisbury-Rowan Schools, Downtown Salisbury Inc., the Robinson Foundation and F&M Bank have indicated interest.
Before putting panels on the children’s theater, Patton will go before the Historic Preservation Commission.
He doesn’t think there will be a problem because the black panels look like roof tiles and would be partly camoflauged by the roof structure.
Even if there is a problem, he said, the grant money could be used on another building in Salisbury.