On Tuesday, the Logan City Council met for the first time this year to hear Mayor Craig Petersen deliver his State of the City address. This year’s speech was the first under Petersen, who highlighted various city projects completed during 2014 and shared his aspirations for the coming year. Green energy production featured prominently in those aspirations.
Petersen announced that a deal was struck to use the excess heat from natural gas pipelines to generate electricity. Obtaining electricity this way will put that excess heat to good use, he said.
“We signed a contract called the VEYO contract. Basically, the way that this works is there’s a large natural gas pipeline. As the gas is put through the pipeline and compressed, it generates a significant amount of excess heat,” Peterson said. “What this project does is capture that heat and turn it in to electricity. So, this is green in the sense that what’s happening right now is the heat is just being dissipated in the air. This now creates a use for that heat.”
Peterson proposed a consortium that would connect Logan residents with solar panel providers and installers. The city’s power and light authorities should make solar-generated electricity an option for those without solar panels, he said.
“We’re going to make it easier for people who want to put solar panels on their roofs by creating a solar consortium. For people that may not want to put solar panels on their roofs, our proposal is that we’ll create a community solar program,” Peterson said. “The idea is that people who so desire can sign up to obtain a block of their electricity generated with solar panels. They’d be guaranteed a fixed rate over a period of twenty years.”
It was also announced that a new material waste transfer station for the city has been completed.
