Solar energy to save Katonah-Lewisboro schools $300K annually

CROSS RIVER, N.Y. - Uncommon financing to power Katonah-Lewisboro schools with solar-generated electricity will mean savings of more than $300,000 a year, KLSD leaders were told last month.

The $7.15 million installation at the district’s five schools, approved by voters in May, is guaranteed to pay for itself, under terms of an “energy performance contract” negotiated with Honeywell Corp.

But Terence Guiry, senior business consultant with Honeywell’s Energy Services Group, told the Sept. 18 school board meeting that the district can also expect $318,434 in direct energy savings annually. Moreover, he said, thanks to grants, rebates, state building aid and other sources, the project will generate a positive cash flow of $565,771.

“It was not an easy process to design a self-funded solar [array] system,” Guiry said. In a presentation, he laid out a timeline for the project that begins with board approval of the proposed contract at its meeting Oct. 23 and wraps up by June 2027.

“It is a truly self-funding scenario,” he said, “across every year of the [contract’s 18-year] term.”

Honeywell will provide—and continue to own—the solar-panel arrays, charging a fee for providing a dramatically less expensive electricity supply. 

The company will install rooftop solar at each of the district’s five schools and provide a ground array at the former Lewisboro Elementary School.

All told, the arrays are expected to generate 2.1 megawatts of electricity, or enough to meet between 55 and 60 percent of the district buildings’ needs, Guiry said.

Honeywell will guarantee the specific dollar savings KLSD can expect, will make certain those predicted numbers are being achieved, and will, Guiry said, make up the difference if they are not. 

“We’re physically measuring the production of each system, which leads directly to the monetary credit and reduction in your bills,” he told the board. “And if that reduction is not what we are contractually showing, then Honeywell will cut a check for the difference. So, you’re absolutely protected under that self-funding.”

Although the May 20 ballot proposition had quoted a top price of as much as $12 million for the solar installation and “other appropriate energy conservation measures,” the $7,150,000 final figure was about what Lisa Herlihy, KLSD’s assistant superintendent for business, had predicted at the time.

Welcome Noise

The state’s “bell-to-bell” ban on student smartphones has changed lunchtime ambience at John Jay High School, the school board’s student trustee has found.

Hudson Lutz, the student trustee, told the board’s Sept. 18 meeting that the prohibition on internet-capable devices has led to more face-to-face communication.

In the lunchroom, he noted, conversation has replaced Instagram and similar cyber-pursuits. “Everyone is talking to each other,” he said. “It’s really a different lunchroom . . . everyone is talking. It’s loud, it’s fun, and I really think that’s all attributable to losing the phones.”

For the first time, students are being required this academic year to store their phones in lockers throughout the school day. Despite some initial misgivings over the ban, Lutz said, students have largely been “positive about it.”