MILL HALL — Keystone Central School District’s Board of Directors signed a letter of intent with McClure Company out of State College to conduct research into potential solar arrays in the district.

During its work session last week, the board heard from Alyssa Wingenfield, vice president of sales and marketing, who offered a breakdown on what the letter of intent would mean.

According to Wingenfield, the letter would give McClure the ability to approach municipalities about placements of arrays and solidify potential costs, savings and more — at no cost to the district.

“This is all preliminary right now,” Wingenfield said of the figures presented to the board at the work session. “This is all desktop engineering using rules of thumb and past projects.”

The current proposal includes potential solar arrays near Central Mountain High School, Woodward Elementary School and Bucktail Middle/High School with the possibility to include Liberty-Curtin Elementary once the new building is completed.

According to Wingenfield, these arrays can supply energy to district facilities within a 2-mile radius.

“We’ll install the array, maintain the array and make sure it’s working. We even guarantee your kilowatt hours,” she said. “What we do is we look at how much the field generated, compare it to what we promised, if there’s a shortfall — much like our energy projects — we owe you the difference. That’s a guaranteed kilowatt production.”

Wingenfield added, while under a proposed 30-year lease, the company would replace any damaged panels or handle any possible hazmat situations. This was further emphasized by Dip Smith, production developer and PV Associate for the North American Board of Certified Practitioners who attended the work session with Wingenfield.

Prior to the vote during Thursday’s meeting, Board member Chris Scaff asked if the district could look into other potential firms to install solar arrays.

“I’d like to see if we can get some of these other solar companies to come in and give us a presentation. Not jump on the first bandwagon, see if we can get a better bang for our buck,” he said. “With me having a solar array — and it’s a big one — I see the benefits… I just want to make sure we’re covered on the backside of things.”

Board member Elisabeth Lynch, who said she feels positive about the benefits of solar, said she would be willing to provide further resources to educate the board.

“I’ve taken a lot of courses and I’ve done a lot of workshops, I’m not an expert, but I know there’s a lot of information out there,” she said.

Lynch said further education regarding solar arrays could be beneficial if the board chooses to move ahead with a contract with McClure or another company.

Board member Dr. William “Bill” Baldino questioned who would cover tree removal for the three proposed sites and who would benefit from the sale of timber.

Wingenfield said McClure would be responsible for tree removal, the cost of which would be included in a Power Purchase agreement.

As for the sale of timber, those funds would go to the district, she said.

Baldino also asked how much it could cost the district during a lag-time while the arrays are constructed.

“There’s obviously going to be a lag time where we’d still be paying the same electric bill,” he said.

Wingenfield said McClure would try to expedite the study and process to reduce the lag time.

“But the due diligence will take a few months. Even once a contract would potentially be approved there would be about a year’s worth of time to get the system built and interconnected to the PPL grid,” she said. “The system itself can be built within 3 to 6 months, but the interconnecting right now is about a year in waiting.”

In the meantime, Wingenfield said she would encourage the district to “continue to shop around your electricity, keep an eye on when supplier contracts end so it can align to when the tentative solar array would turn on and allows you to sell back to the grid.”

Superintendent Dr. Francis Redmon asked if the district at any point would be paying for the array and its electric bill.

Smith said the payments wouldn’t begin until the solar is generated.

“We would time that with your electricity contract as well,” he said.

The letter of intent — which comes at no cost to the district — was approved in a 6-2 vote, with members Balindo and Cannon voting no. Board member Polly Donahay was absent from Thursday’s meeting.