Solar & Battery Storage

I'm Ed Riely from Truesdale Drive. A couple of things. There's one member of this board who is a rather lonely voice who speaks up for what I call the beauty of Croton. Actually, she's not here tonight, so I can talk about it. Whereas the board doesn…

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The urbanization the urbanization of Croton and the uglification of Croton many times for ideological reasons, especially in light of the failure of the extreme environmental movement in terms of providing fuel to Europe, to The United States, to the…

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My name is Ed Riely. I'm from Truesdale Drive in Croton. I'd like to, thank two Croton citizens, Paul Steinberg and Therese Godoy for their letters to the Croton paper regarding the sex education scandal at the high school. I have a name for it, but …

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4. Review and final approval of landscaping plans. 5. Layout of proposed water and sewer systems and fire flow to Property. 2 4915-5948-0850, V. 9 B. Issues for Planning Board review under Village Code § 230-70 and the Supplementary Regulations of…

2. NEW BUSINESS a) SGS Van Wyck 012823 Croton on Hudson, 4 Veterans Plaza (79.17-1-10 & 5.1) Amended Site Plan to add a 40' x 10' storage container within the fenced-in battery energy storage system area. As the applicant is not present, the Planning…

Michael Mamone of 19 Young Avenue spoke next and is concerned about charging stations at 1 Croton Point Avenue being counted as parking spaces and says that by law, a charging station is not a parking space. Michael Mamone is also concerned about lan…

Chairman Luntz asked about the reduction of the overall height of the building and elevator bulkhead and John Bainlardi said that they are working with an elevator consultant, and may be able to reduce the height of the bulkhead by eight feet. The Pl…

That timeline could be shortened by several years. However unless held up, both of our pending solar projects should be completed by mid-2026. - Other Reports Jon reported on information received regarding the GridRewards program. As a homeowner …

John Bainlardi noted that the applicants updated the drawings in response to the Planning Board's comments at the March 4, 2025 meeting, including adding a note regarding supplemental landscaping, adding a crosswalk on the on-site, one-way driveway. …

[Lindsay sent him the pics 4/27/25.] 3 Harmon firehouse rooftop HPs: The project has two parts. First, a single unit was be installed as part of the construction of the EMS addition. Second, six HPs would replace the six 25-year old RTUs atop the …

None of our work is directly tied to the CLCPA. - Recruitment/Outreach/Communications/PR On 4/24/25, Brian accepted an award given for the train station solar canopy project by City&StateNY, a “media organization covering NY local and State pol…

That won’t stop the projects, but it tightens their budgets. Train station canopies: Paperwork for the purchase of the project by Madison Energy is almost done. Commissioning of the inverters for the BESS is scheduled for this month. Fixing various…

10.Memo from Village Manager Bryan Healy regarding Village initiatives: crosswalk safety signs, renewable diesel fuel for select DPW vehicles, Dobbs Park upgrades and the DPW solar canopy project. 11.Memo from Village…

No damage or fire resulted. The Village replaced both with propane-fired units and installed a 1,000 gallon above-ground propane tank next to the DPW parking lot. The only muni facility still depending on fuel oil is the Washington firehouse (others …

The BESS is being bought (and will be managed) by Flexgen, which owns other BESSs. SW residential Solarize program: Carly updated us on her home’s solar installation. SunBlue started work on 8/7/25 and finished by 8/22/25. Actual work took only about…

SW reported that (by late 2 August) over 76 Croton residents (more than any other Westchester community) had applied for help from its program. Over 360 in the County have done so. Installations completed by 12/31/25 are eligible for the 30% federal …

during the grants’ terms. For our $425K grant, NYSERDA (on 8/19/25) OKed transferring funds among the covered projects (solar at DPW and Harmon firehouse, HPs at Harmon) to reflect technical changes at those sites. The federal DirectPay process remai…

for hosting the BBQ at Senasqua on August 21st, this past Sunday he attended the Sustainability Committee meeting where they talked about expansion of our composting program, a renewable diesel program, the possibility of inst…

Great. Thank you both very much. Okay. So firstly, the village acquired Kaplan's Pond in 1991 from a private developer. A longtime resident will probably remember them, the Alberts. And we also acquired the wetlands immediately to the north of the po…

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They were AS La being “confused” by distant pole-mounted lights in the train [Pee i) yard (bottom circle). Dave’s pics clarified the problem. On / 4 page 2, see pic of how rushed commuters have damaged in) downspouts. Bollards will be installed to pr…

- New Business / Other Issues Under the Trump tax bill, the battery energy storage system (BESS) tax credit was extended until 2034, ensuring funding for ~8 years. A “gold rush” is now developing around potential BESS sites, esp. where existing power…

As a possible site for a 2-4 MW BESS, Lindsay scoped out two small plots at the Village’s Pumphouse Road facility, from which our drinking water is pumped from the aquifer below us. Based on data in a recent proposal for a site in Cortlandt (presentl…

Lindsay stated that it was reviewed several years ago but dropped because the open areas are relatively small, partially shaded, often flood, and may be needed by the Village’s water utility for other purposes. BESS, however, occupy little space, may…

Okay. Good eve good evening, and welcome to our October 15 work session of the Croton Village Board of Trustees. Our first time in the business is a author or consider authorizing the manager to reject the bid received on 09/04/2025 for the DPW Garag…

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Manager. Whereas the village issued an invitation to bid on 07/31/2025 for the installation and commissioning of a solar canopy at the DPW garage. Whereas this project to be funded through grants awarded to the village by the New York State Energy De…

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On the driveway. Yeah. Okay. DPW solar canopy project. We just took care of that. Yeah. So you guys, I think, are up to date on that one. So, unfortunately, we only received one bid and and was not complete. So we are planning, I guess, to go back ou…

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Shoreline resiliency and flood mitigation. So this was for the train station parking lot, trying to come up with a a plan to minimize, if not remove, all flooding that happens during larger events there. We did have some conceptual plans drawn up by …

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gazebo, all of which fall outside of the allowed building envelope. Other than exceptions of the porch and deck as mentioned, the architecture has changed, but the footprint is the same. The garage is increased slightly, but it is within the building…

The applicants brought samples of the building materials which were passed around by the Planning Board members. When asked if the applicant was planning to put solar panels on the house, the answer was no. Chairman Luntz advised the applicants that …

Train station canopies: No new issues to report. Completion of commissioning (by NovaSource) is expected before year’s end, with startup shortly thereafter. Paperwork for the acquisition of the POWIN battery system by FlexGen is nearly complete. DPW …

- Other Programs Food Scrap Recycling: The new scrap shed arrived 10/13/25 but was damaged and had construction defects. On 10/16/25, Bryan Healy stated “The company will be building us a new shed and replacing the existing one (hopefully by Hallowee…

accepted, but a site other than the Pumphouse Road facility was desired. The Village’s property on Hessian Hills Road was examined, but the nearest distribution power line has a hosting capacity <300 kW and is not worth developing. We reviewed an 11/…

Well, thank you, trustee Nicholson. A few things here. On November 6, our heart committee met following up on the first four Croton luminaries that were honored, Pete Sakerakis, Ed Ron Thaler, Cornelia Cotton, and of course, the collection of great d…

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Train station canopies: Commissioning of both the canopies and the BESS should be completed by the end of December, with startup shortly thereafter. To avoid continued damage to some downspout connections to the underground drainage system by hasty c…

- Funding and Budgeting Issues Possible 2"! BESS: On 11/17/25, the 11/3/25 proposal for a BESS behind (i.e., north of) the Municipal Place facility was reviewed by Village officials. To accommodate ongoing DPW uses of the site, the project needed to …

We then discussed moving the salt shed (under consideration for other reasons) and using its spot for a BESS. [Subsequent review of the adjacent power line found that it had no hosting capacity. ] 2

Thank you to Jon for clarifying potential BESS revenue based on VDER credits, and to Carly for assembling a spreadsheet of ~25 BESS developers so we’re ready to seek competitive proposals. Cutting our muni electric bill: An 18-month struggle to enrol…

Village Board of Trustees December 17, 2025 Page 23 Trustee Simon thanked everyone for participating in our Tree and Menorah lightings on December 4“, thanked the Police Department and Croton Caring for sponsoring the annual Toy Drive on December 6th…

Thank you, mayor. To start with the question that was raised during the public comment period, as I detailed a little bit in my memo, we are switching over all of our diesel vehicles to the renewable diesel, fuel that, we have been piloting for the p…

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5. REPORT FROM THE VILLAGE MANAGER: Village Manager Healy advised that the Village will be switching over all DPW vehicles to renewable diesel, the Village expects to see an annual reduction of approximately 186 metric tons of CO2 per year which acco…

- Solar Projects/Issues Train station canopies: Third-party commissioning is now slated to start 2/16/26 with power startup by early or mid-March. On New Year’s Day evening, the lights below all the canopies failed due to a breaker trip, the cause…

- Funding and Budgeting Issues BESS 2.0: At our 12/7/25 meeting, we reviewed the half-sized Luminace proposal at the Municipal Place facility. Unfortunately, Luminace’s development director indicated that his firm is now instead focusing on acquir…

The salt shed site can’t be used for a BESS because it’s not near a power line with hosting capacity. Len agreed to accelerate that discussion with Village officials before our next meeting. Expeditious pursuit of another BESS lease in Croton is i…

Lindsay attended two BESS events held last week by New Yorkers for Clean Power to promote community support for batteries. The main presenter was Jeff Seidman, Vassar College Assoc. Prof. of Env. Studies. The main takeaway was the minimal experienc…

4 Accomplishments & activities of the Sustainability Committee during 2025 - promoted use of Renewable Diesel in all municipal diesel trucks - developed and sought a contract for a ~60 kW DPW solar canopy - secured contractor for installation of EV …

The possible locations for red light cameras, if we should go forward with that. And then some partnership activities that the committee is considering with Croton-Harmon Schools. Similarly, our sustainability committee met on the eighteenth. Mayor a…

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We could we could we could be done with this in twenty minutes. I make a motion that we clean up the zoning code. Okay. So No second. I'm gonna start with my memo, and then we can look at the law. So for the past couple months, we've been working mys…

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Whereas the village issued an invitation to bid on 11/20/2025 for the installation and commissioning of a solar canopy at the DPW garage, and whereas this project is to be funded through grants awarded to the village by the New York State Energy Deve…

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Item three, maybe someone later will address the huge amounts of ice and snow on the solar panels, whether they generate electricity at this time, whether there's any the weight of those of that amount of snow on the solar panels has any effect or da…

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NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Board of Trustees hereby authorizes the Village Manager to execute an agreement with Croton AYSO for the leasing of certain sports field fences for the placing of advertisement banners for the period beginning Ja…

Ed Riely, 110 Truesdale Drive, Croton on Hudson, stated that the Human Rights presentation at the Library was an excellent presentation, does not support putting the Recreation Department at Gouveia Park, the Village Court should …

- Solar Projects/Issues Train station canopies: Third-party commissioning is underway. It should be finished by our March meeting, with full operation of the system thereafter. DPW solar canopy: Rivertown Solar’s bid (already accepted by the Villa…

Waste-To-Energy (WTE) incineration facility (not to a landfill where they could instead produce methane), Lindsay said it’s hard to support such a claim. - Funding and Budgeting Issues BESS 2.0: Development of that Municipal Place project is back…

2  Len and Brian reported on a discussion to relocate our salt shed to the County’s Croton Point Park salt storage site. Doing so would free up the present shed site to be used to store the seasonal yard waste presently held at the DPW’s Municipal…

To “lock up” 5 MW of hosting capacity elsewhere while those discussions continue, Lindsay is outlining a Letter of Intent to that end. Before our March meeting, he will set up a zoom with Village officials to nail down its terms. To address other i…

Regarding other local BESS issues, we briefly discussed how a patchwork of projects and barriers is becoming apparent. A 5 MW project is being developed in Tarrytown by Catalyze, a competitor to Luminace, in the parking lot of a professional servic…

Jon updated us on his ongoing experience with the Grid Rewards demand response program. Despite his early efforts to minimize his electric usage when asked, he received $0 for his effort, due to his use of solar panels. However, upon doing nothing …

And then, you know, just to summarize what these changes are, and Vince might need some of your help with this. So, basically, what these what the cleanups are, there's a bunch around, transitioning the special permits from the village board to the p…

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Right. Anything else before we kinda dig in here? Alright. So, you know, just looking at these, the stock. Number one, you know, throughout, we mentioned this clarify special permits are now handled by the planning board. Number two is a tier four so…

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Okay. Number seven. These are tier one battery storage systems. These are the the smaller. These could even be rooftop systems. Right, Vince? Two I believe so. Yeah. These are now allowed in waterfront commercial districts and parks, recreation, educ…

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That's good. Good good catch. Alright. So we're going on to page 23. And, so planning the the planning board now is gonna handle site plan approval for several new things, a residential accessory building, tier three and four solar energy systems, ti…

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So in we used a little over 1.8 million kilowatt hours and that's between both our purchase through NIPA as well as our production through our solar arrays. on the right there is our solar production and the percent of production of our total use. So…

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The consultants are seeking input on priority ecological areas within Croton for focused attention. Members and liaisons discussed potential priority areas, including: • The Croton River corridor, including concerns about hydrilla. • The brook o…

Question on section six number one. Yep. K. Do we need to add battery storage signage? I don't know. Do does do battery storage?

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displayed on the solar energy system. Yes. Because this is So I was wondering, do you need something similar for battery storage? We could we could have it in here already. That's why I'm I'm gonna look right now and see if it's if it's in the chapte…

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sections. So the battery energy storage system for signage says the signage shall be in compliance with ANSI z five thirty five, what whatever that means, and shall include the type of technology associated with the battery energy storage systems, an…

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Con Ed’s formal Permission To Operate (PTO) should follow in early April. A dead Canadian goose was found atop canopy #3, facing the 2nd floor east window in the train station. Due to concerns over possible bird flu, removal has been scheduled with…

When shut down in Nov. 2024, Croton had the most points, making it the #1 CEC in the State. On 3/4/26, NYSERDA issued a preliminary description of new High Impact Actions (HIA), i.e., tasks performed to earn points and secure grants. It requested i…

- permitting a BESS > 2 MW on any property in the Village - hosting or owning a PV system on municipal property (5 to 100+ kW) - permitting a PV system > 1 MW on any property in the Village - creating community-wide fossil fuel leaf blower regulat…

Once we have more details on that HIA, Lindsay agreed to pursue that opportunity. BESS 2.0: During a 3/10/26 zoom with the Village Manager, Brian, Len, and Lindsay, it was determined that a competitive bid on the proposed 5 MW BESS wouldn’t be neede…

Mayor Pugh said that an upcoming Village Board meeting would discuss seeking support for future State funding of the CEC and other locally beneficial programs (e.g., CHIPS). - New Business / Other Issues Balcony Solar: Corey summarized his 3-page…

this local law was put together, with the village engineer, our planning consultant, the village attorney, and, we spent a number of months looking at the zoning code to see, what items needed to be cleaned up and what potential, items needed to be u…

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Most recently, Stamford, Connecticut, and Rye, New York. Why not Croton? Croton has won awards for planting trees, bike sharing, solar canopy project. This is just as important. Gasoline powered leaf blowers should not be allowed on school property o…

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Thank you, trustee Nicholson. First of I wish, to I wanna make sure that, or I hope, I should say, that everyone had a good Easter and Passover in Ramadan since Ramadan was just ending, I think, when we had our last meeting. So I hope everyone had a …

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Commissioning of the entire system (canopies and batteries) was almost done when Con Ed found an outdated nameplate on one of the BESS inverters, requiring replacement. Once done, Con Ed will issue its formal Permission To Operate (PTO), hopefully v…

We await the doc’s arrival. 3 BESS 2.0: On 4/20/26, a draft consulting agreement referencing the Luminace Letter of Intent was approved by Bryan Healy and sent to the Village attorney for review. It addresses Village requirements for committing to …

He and Leo Wiegman of Sustainable Westchester later led ~20 attendees on a tour of the canopies and BESS. On 4/21/26, Lindsay met with Len on hiring a part-time intern to assist project development and management tasks. A small (~$7.4K) NYSERDA g…

Bryan Healy OKed that solution. 2 E-bikes: Len said that in the 24 days since the program re-started on 4/6/26, 210 e-bike rides were logged. On 5/2/26, the Senasqua Park bike station opened (see pic). Another site (at the base of the overpass on…

Len agreed to get clarification on the matter. Len also reviewed a budgeted $1B State program to provide a $200 rebate on electric bills for residential customers with incomes below $150K/yr, or a $150 rebate for those with higher incomes. https://…

Another candidate expressed interest and was reviewed via zoom on 5/5/26, but then also took a full-time internship elsewhere. Dan mentioned his firm had (last January/February) used the program to hire 5 interns. Lindsay concluded that next year …

And I I don't wanna add to the this list, but when a recommendation comes back, I guess, at what point could we look or talk discuss battery storage infrastructure and how, you know, that's managed.

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That's a I mean, battery storage is you know, we have battery storage, right, covered in our code already. I mean, what you're discuss describing there is, I guess, individual

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You'd be surprised that Yeah. Yep. I mean, in terms from a regulatory perspective. Right? Like, we have the zoning code, but that's meant for, like, a battery energy storage system that's like a, for lack of a better word, a quasi utility function. I…

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Our next item in business is a review of a potential RFP for battery energy storage systems at or a battery energy storage system at the village on properties

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and that is the use of some small parts of Croton Village property for a battery battery energy storage system.

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battery energy storage systems or BESS for short, much easier word, as an opportunity and no longer as any kind of a risk.

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have been looking at a variety of different opportunities to do with battery energy storage systems.

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These battery energy storage systems come in several sizes.

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The more battery storage you've got, the more capable your photovoltaic systems are on the grid. In California,

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Our system, as I said, is charged by the 4.2 megawatts of solar panels on top of the canopies.

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Now due to various changes in the incentives for BESS systems,

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Company that built it, Sol Systems, was the best of the seven. That's what I want to do now to see if we have that opportunity for battery energy storage systems also near both hosting capacity and on village property.

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support what the state wants, which is more battery energy storage systems that can work with sustainability

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you know, you again, you provided a lot of information. But first and foremost, right, it's the sustainability committee. So could you provide a very concise summary of the kind of the environmental benefits of battery energy storage?

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but I'll start with let me start with the first one, which is we already have a Bess, right, at the train station.

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battery energy storage systems of this size under our code are a special permit use. So it'd have to go through that whole process. And they're only Which skips the plan which skips the board of trustees.

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even though it's a battery energy storage system, you actually end up with a site plan for it just as it was any kind of any kind of development. So I think we should we should have some confidence

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I just wanna think about how we're communicating this to the public. Not we're looking for sites to put battery storage, because that's how this feels to me right now. Instead of saying, I would like to understand what the battery storage opportuniti…

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eyes perk up when we were talking about battery storage

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we need to be able to transmit it and distribute it. And that means more transmission and distribution systems unless you have things like the battery energy storage systems that can circumvent those problems.

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and the less pollution that goes into it, the better. And a battery energy storage system is one of the ways to reduce that pollution just like using an electric car, just like using any other cleaner system to

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I must I don't know all the details of the solar panel project. So you've probably been through all of that,

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from any other kind of their BESS approval

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AND BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED: that Resolution 148-2026 is hereby rescinded. On a motion by TRUSTEE SIMON, seconded by TRUSTEE NACHTALER, the Village Board voted 4-0 (TRUSTEE NICHOLSON was absent) to authorize the expenditure of $2,000 from the sustain…

Len reported that May usage was good at 300 rides/week. Dobbs Ferry (another e-bike grant participant) had great success after adding another hub at the Dobbs campus for Mercy College: monthly community rides rose from 200 to 1400. The next step f…

Prior to installation of the canopies, the birds did so using the surface of the blacktop. 2 DPW solar canopy: Because the adjacent rooftop already has a rooftop solar installation (from 2020), Con Ed is requiring the canopy project to file a CESIR…

However, some units offer lower temp hydronic water that may be OK in new well- insulated homes having appropriate radiators and/or radiant floor heating. Corey said to check back in 5 years when better systems may be available. Dave mentioned that,…

Permission was granted. Another BESS could produce significant revenue, a portion of which could go to the Village’s Sustainability Fund for future projects. Keiko’s contract is now in process. She will help Lindsay assemble a RFI and RFP to assess…

Len is seeking information on the latter. Clean Energy Communities (CEC): On 6/4/26, Lindsay zoomed with SW personnel on the future of the CEC/CSC programs and BESS opportunities. They too are seeking clarification on CEC funding status under the…

Re-instating them may help with future funding from those two agencies. Other grant opportunities: A June review of other available State and federal clean energy and sustainability grants found that none were available to Croton (e.g., local media…

And then, just comment on the battery energy storage system. That is number four, b four.

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So on June 23, mayor and I were honored to be at the library as one of our wonderful residents, Ali Fraes, Alana Frays, got the an award from senator Harkom for pride month for all of the work that she does in our community and including heading up f…

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Trustee Simon advised that the Executive Committee of the Westchester Municipal Officials Organization met on June 18th and talked about the changes in the Climate Leadership Act which changes some of the funding that is av…

I can confidently tell you, it's not newer technology. Solar here is so mature. I mean, we've been doing what is newer is all the benefits of the new programs, the new tariff rates, the new federal monies. The solar technology, don't compare it to el…

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electrical panel work, he used the phrase domestic content. Domestic content, just to translate, means US content in the solar panels because the problem was is we're buying solar panels from a dictatorship in the worst part of the world with human p…

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