Ithaca signs solar-power pact

Ithaca Mayor Svante Myrick has signed a 20-year electric power purchase agreement for a solar array that will replace greenhouse-gas emissions equal to that created for 120 homes, the city announced Tuesday.

Solar City will design, install and maintain the 2.4-megawatt system on 10 acres at the Ithaca-Tompkins Regional Airport, and the city will purchase electricity from the system. The city will get a credit on its electric bill for each kilowatt hour of electricity fed into the New York State Electric & Gas Co. power grid.

“I want to thank Sustainability Coordinator Nick Goldsmith and the entire city staff,” Myrick said in a statement. “This project is a big deal. It took a lot of internal discussion, a lot of cross-departmental collaboration, to make this happen. Ultimately Common Council voted unanimously to approve the agreement.”

The system is expected to be completed by the end of the year.

The city’s 2006 local action plan calls for cutting greenhouse-gas emissions 20 percent below 2001 levels by 2016. A 2012 city plan calls for cutting emissions 80 percent below 2010 levels by 2050.

Solar City is a publicly traded company founded in 2006 to build solar-power facilities for commercial, educational, governmental and residential customers, according to information supplied by the company to the city.

It has installed photovoltaic facilities for some 180 municipalities, mostly in the Northeast and West Coast, including 65,000 kilowatt-hours in all for Walmart, according to the company.