Townshend – Grace Cottage Hospital and Green Lantern Group have entered into an agreement to collaborate on a 500 kilowatt community solar array. The electricity generated by this array, located in Pittsford, Vermont, will serve the main Grace Cottage Hospital buildings and Pittsford’s municipal buildings. The project will generate significant savings for Grace Cottage Hospital over the twenty-year term of the agreement. Green Lantern Group has secured a Certificate of Public Good for the project and anticipates that the solar project will be operational by early 2015.
This project is part of a broader initiative by Green Lantern, which is based in Waterbury, Vermont, to bring solar power and utility savings to schools, hospitals, colleges, municipal buildings, and private businesses throughout Vermont. To date, The Green Lantern Group has developed over 20 community net-metered solar projects in Vermont, totaling nearly 5 megawatts of installed capacity with 8 megawatts of additional projects in the works. “There’s a lot of opportunity for Windham and Windsor counties as the clean energy sector grows in Vermont,” said Luke Shullenberger, CEO of Green Lantern Group. “Our development and financing program allows key community facilities to go solar and save money with no investment required.”
“Grace Cottage Hospital is pleased to be participating with Green Lantern and Pittsford in this solar project. The economic, environmental, and social benefits from projects such as this are meaningful for our hospital and for our community,” said Roger Allbee, Grace Cottage Hospital’s CEO. “This project will provide most of our annual power needs, thereby reducing our annual operating budget, and it fits perfectly with our goal to work towards environmental sustainability in all of our operations.”
Grace Cottage Hospital, founded in 1949, is a Critical Access Hospital offering a variety of health care services, including: a 19-bed hospital with a 24/7 Emergency Department, digital X-ray, 40- slice CT scanner, bone densitometer, and ultrasound; lab; an outpatient Rural Health Clinic with twelve providers including five family practice physicians, a pediatrician, a urologist, and a psychiatrist; a physical, occupational, and speech therapy department for both inpatient and outpatient treatment; a Community Wellness Center hosting a variety of classes promoting a healthy lifestyle; and a full-service community pharmacy open to the public.
