News

After decades of false starts, solar power in America is finally poised for its breakthrough moment. The price of solar panels has dropped by more than 80 percent since President Obama took office, and the industry is beginning to compete with coal and natural gas on economics alone.

The town is ramping up its efforts to use solar energy to help offset some of its biggest energy eaters. It started with the installation of solar panels at the end of last year at the former landfill—next up is the town pool.

Greenskies Renewable Energy installed more megawatts of solar panels in 2014 than any other New England-based company, according to a new ranking by Solar Power World.

Connecticut-based Greenskies Renewable Energy has announced it will build a 2.7 MW municipal solar array in Lewis County, N.Y., the company’s first municipal project in New York.

Erie County wants SolarCity and another developer to build two of the biggest solar arrays in the Buffalo Niagara region on vacant county-owned land near the Alden Correctional Facility and near the county’s wastewater-treatment plant in Angola.

Erie County lawmakers are considering a plan that would see two developers construct solar arrays that could create enough electricity to reportedly save the county an estimated $9.5 million over 20 years.

The cornfield behind the Lewis County Public Safety Building will soon be filled with solar panels. With the stroke of a pen, the county has a 20-year agreement with a solar company called Greenskies. "It's kind of a no brainer as we've come to understand the economics of it. It really will lower our energy costs for a long time," said Liz Swearingin, county manager.

TO many skeptics, particularly on the right, the spectacular failure of the solar-panel manufacturer Solyndra in 2011, after receiving a $535 million loan guarantee from the Department of Energy, demonstrated the industry’s shaky future and the danger of government efforts to subsidize it to success.

LOWVILLE — Lewis County has reached a final agreement on a solar project expected to offer the county and its municipal hospital significant cost savings over the next few decades.

A long-shuttered landfill will soon contribute to decreasing what the town spends on running its sewage treatment plant.