ALMA, Ark. — The City of Alma is now relying more on solar panels to power the city.
The city “flipped the switch” Friday (Feb. 5) to represent the transition over to the new source of solar energy.
“It’s going to offset about 80% of their Arkansas valley accounts and one of the biggest users of that account is the waste-water plant and that’s where it’s located," said Andrew Celic with Entegrity.
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Celic says this will affect city accounts only and not residential.
It’s a project Alma has been working on with Entegrity for about two years and it did not use taxpayer money.
“Entegrity, we own operate and maintain the plant we made this investment in Alma and the way they pay this is off is just by buying power,” Celic said.
It’s a new system Mayor Jerry Martin is confident in.
“It’s going to work," he said.
The mayor also says it’s going to be more cost-effective saving about $25,000 each year.
“Anytime that we can save money especially for a city our size and we can take those dollars and start redirecting them into other projects economic development projects that's huge for us and this is going to be a big savings over the next 20, 25 years," Mayor Martin said.
Right now Entegrity is working with the city on phase two of flip the switch, which will help to power even more of the city-owned buildings.
Entegrity is looking for land in Alma to put the next round of solar panels which will power the OG&E accounts for the city.
Once phase 2 is done, the mayor says they’ll save more money each year.