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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowThe city of Carmel plans to spend more than $3.2 million to install thousands of solar panels in four areas throughout the city.
Solar panels will be installed on the top of the Veterans Way and Booth Tarkington parking garages, and solar panel fields will be built at a city-owned water treatment plant at 106th Street and Gray Road and at a sanitary sewer pumping station on Hazel Dell Parkway.
Altogether, the projects will feature 6,196 panels that produce more than 2.7 million kilowatt hours annually, roughly enough to power 235 homes.
The panels are expected to cost more than $3.2 million. Financing for the project has yet to be determined, but Mayor Jim Brainard said he hopes start the projects next year.
The city has been discussing the project with Carmel-based Telamon Corp. for a few years, he said. Telamon has performed other solar projects for the city.
The solar panels will serve as an important security system should the city’s power grid go down, Brainard told IBJ. The project would also save the city $7.5 million in energy costs over the life of the panels, he said.
The panels will provide energy to the sites where they are built as well as other city-owned buildings.
The panels on the parking garages will be built on a canopy that will serve as a cover for the top levels, Brainard said.
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