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Bedford scraps solar project

Commissioner says deal with RER for panels ‘is dead’

Workers from B&D Trucking and Excavating, Alum Bank, move solar panels onto pallets adjacent to the Bedford County Jail along Imlertown Road in Bedford on Monday afternoon. Mirror photo by Patrick Waksmunski

The Bedford Township solar field project that has been stalled since 2018 will no longer go ahead with RER Energy Group, according to Bedford County Commissioners Deb Baughman and Alan Frederick.

“The panels belong to RER, and they were told to remove them from county property by April 1,” Baughman wrote in an email. “RER has not been successful in getting the project up and running here. I told RER in a phone call that the project with them is dead.”

According to the Dec. 6 minutes from the Bedford Township supervisors meeting, the project was listed under the solicitor’s items section as “jail solar panels.” The minutes read that “RER stated they will have the solar panels removed by the end 2022.”

Under the correspondence section of the same meeting minutes, the item “RER Energy Group” read that the group was “keeping us in the loop with the solar panels at the jail and are still looking at 12/31/22,” with the township’s Dec. 20 meeting minutes reiterating the panels would be removed by the end of the year.

However, under the old business section of the township’s Feb. 7 meeting minutes, the item “RER Energy” under the “solicitor response” subheading read “solar fields at jail: letter giving them until March 31, 2023.”

“It wasn’t going anywhere so we asked (RER) to take them out because we didn’t want the liability of having them on our property,” Frederick said in a voicemail message.

The panels continued to lay stacked in a field by the Bedford County Correctional Facility until late last week when excavators and work crews arrived on scene to begin hauling them away. Brush and debris that had accumulated around the panels for the past five years had to be removed and it is unclear what the state of the panels are or where they are being taken.

It is also unclear if Bedford plans to continue the solar field project with a different company.

“Quite honestly, my patience with RER ran out,” Baughman said. “I don’t know what RER is doing with their panels. These are my own opinions.”

Both commissioners stressed that no county money or energy was expended for the failed project.

Funding for the $3.3 million project came from private investment and a $900,698 grant awarded in March 2018 by the Commonwealth Financing Authority’s Pennsylvania Solar Energy Program, according to published records.

On Dec. 11, 2018, the Tribune-Democrat reported that the project was expected to be online in spring 2019, while on Dec. 13, 2018, the Bedford Gazette reported then-Bedford County Commissioner Josh Lang as saying the panels were expected to be operating by July 2019.

When asked in an earlier article why the project has been stalled since 2018, Bedford County Commissioner Barry Dallara stated that design work in 2019 took longer than anticipated.

The project had potentially found a new location and was granted an extension with completion due by June 30, 2023, the Department of Community and Economic Development said in a statement in April 2022.

Despite the original approved plans placing the solar field close to the Bedford County Correctional Facility on Imlertown Road, the DCED stated the project ran into issues with an interconnection agreement and that a new site within the municipality had been identified.

The DCED also clarified that a grant for the project was awarded through a program administered by the Commonwealth Financing Authority. While the CFA falls under the DCED, it is an agency independent from the administration.

In its statement, DCED said the Commonwealth Financing Authority had released a portion of the $900,698 grant, but the grantee would be required to provide proof of the successful installation of the system before receiving the full grant amount.

“CFA will not release additional funds until the new site has been secured and the change of location has been approved by the Commonwealth Financing Authority Board,” the statement read. “If the project is not completed, funds already distributed could be clawed back in addition to not receiving the remaining funds.”

It is unclear if the CFA has been reimbursed for the portion of the grant it had released for the project.

Bedford County Commissioner Barry Dallara, Bedford Township Supervisor Chair Gregory Crist, DCED Regional Contact Madra Clay and RER Energy Group did not respond to requests for comment. When contacted, Bedford Township Solicitor Bradley Allison offered no comment.

Mirror Staff Writer Rachel Foor is at 814-946-7458.

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