The Narragansett Bay Commission reports savings of $1.1 million a year thanks to a trio of wind turbines at the agency’s Field’s Point facility in Providence. Because of those energy savings, the agency wants to get up to 80 percent of its power from renewable sources.

The wind turbines have been providing more than 40 percent of the power used at the Field’s Point wastewater treatment facility. 

They’ve been so successful that the Narragansett Bay Commission wants to add more renewable energy projects to the mix, “especially if those renewable energy projects can produce a savings for our ratepayers,” said spokeswoman Jamie Samons. “So as a result, we’ve been looking at solar, we’ve been looking at biogas generation, and a number of other types of projects.”

Samons reports a renewable energy project is currently under construction at the Bucklin Point wastewater treatment facility in East Providence. It would use methane gas produced from the byproduct of the wastewater treatment process. That project is expected to generate 30 to 40 percent of the Bucklin Point’s power needs.

Samons said laws in Rhode Island will allow the agency to use renewable energy credits from green energy projects that are not located physically on the agency’s sites.

“So for us this means that perhaps we can be a part of a solar array project in another part of the state and yet still benefit from that energy production,” said Samons.

Clean water is an expensive proposition, said Samons, and the agency’s Board of Commissioners is trying to balance its responsibility to both ratepayers and Narragansett Bay.

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