Summit Hill Water Authority officials learned from engineer Mike Tirpak that work is proceeding slowly but steadily on the solar field project, and that PPL is planning for it to be ready to be turned on within two weeks.

But the project has not progressed smoothly.Some of the bumps included pulling the wire to the inverter, repositioning of foundations and panels being offset, in some cases by several inches, although Tirpak said this shouldn't affect the array."Joe (Marone, project manager of Miller Brothers) dragged his feet at first when the project began and the site work should have been done. He didn't want to have the geo technical engineer on site until it was completed," Tirpak said, telling authority officials he didn't necessarily agree with this decision."When the engineer arrived he was not happy with the fill and said it needed to be modified."Tirpak said the footings for the panels were a concern early in the project, but have since been placed over the last three weeks. When the first row was placed it was adjusted to within the two-inch tolerance.One of the later rows was off by eight inches, which created a noticeable step when one examined the array.Chairman Louis Alexander said he noticed on a visit to the site that a few of the trees were partially shading one of the panels.Tirpak said he was aware of that and added that due to repositioning of the foundations because of grading issues, it put the array closer to the edges of the site, so a few trees will need to be removed. He said there was still some testing to be done on the panels to ensure they are getting the proper sunlight.Tirpak told the board the project is being constructed with a design plan, so if Miller Brothers want to be paid for the remainder of the project, they will have to make sure it meets the specifications, adding that he felt at this point they should be successful in that endeavor."It won't be perfect to my idea, but it will meet the project specifications," he said to the board.Summit Hill Councilman Bill Chapman attended the meeting and said he was interested in the status of the project.He thanked Tirpak for the work he was doing, but had some questions about the financial issues."Where is the project with regard to the funding?" Chapman asked.Tirpak said one check for $36,000 was paid to Miller Brothers for the work to date, and while Marone submitted a second bill a week or so ago, Tirpak's review found some items on it that were not completed."I pointed that out to him and asked he remove them, and now we are two weeks away from scheduled completion, so I expect that we won't get a bill until it is completed now," said Tirpak.Chapman also inquired about the PPL grant for which Tirpak requested an extension. He told the board the extension was verbally granted until December to complete the project and that the $500,000 would be awarded at that point.Board member Ed Kruczek questioned the cost of the DSL line. Tirpak explained the line was necessary to post the data to the Internet so it could be monitored and used by the service that would track the renewable energy credits. The cost will be $35 a month and is required for the data service to track energy production.Chapman questioned Tirpak about whether the additional costs for insurance and the data service were mentioned when the project was being considered. Tirpak said they were in the administrative costs, but while they were initially projected to be about $5,000, in actuality the cost will be more like $7,600 a year, an increase of $2,600 over what was projected."It seems like the amount of money this project was going to generate is being eaten up by these costs," said Chapman."A big part of this is the renewable energy credits which have lost 75 percent of their value since this project was first formulated," Tirpak answered. He pointed out the original rate of return was expected to be 30 cents per kilowatt but by the time the authority was able to lock in a rate it dropped to about 7 cents per kilowatt hour greatly reducing the return on the project.Alexander said renewable energy credits are basically a commodity that is dealt with like the stock market, but Tirpak also added that it is more a politically controlled commodities market.Tirpak pointed out Pennsylvania's failure to pass a bill that dealt with the credits along with their allowance of other states to buy and sell in the commonwealth have created a large surplus, causing the REC's value to plummet. He said in his opinion Pennsylvania has not adopted policies to support the renewable energy industry, creating a poor environment.He pointed out that one state which has enacted some of these is New Jersey, and the difference can be seen in the REC rate, which is 60 cents per kilowatt hour, compared to Pennsylvania's 6-7 cents per kW hour.Tirpak said depending on what happens in the future this could bounce back, but currently, the depressed rate will also lengthen the amount of time the field requires to cover its construction costs. In the worst case scenario that RECs disappear entirely it will take 24 to 26 years to fully realize the return on the investment, but if the rates go up that could be drastically reduced.Currently the debt service will be paid in 10 years and the panels should last 20 but at that point they will only be 80 percent efficient.