South Portland officials are mulling the installation of a solar power array to be built atop the old city landfill off Highland Avenue that, when complete two years from now, could power up to 80 homes.

And that’s just the first phase of a project that promises to the first of its kind in the state of Maine. However, getting the development off the ground depends on the city finding investment partners, while a rate case currently before the Public Utilities Commission could affect how much enthusiasm Central Maine Power shows for the idea.

Still, City Manager Jim Gailey has high hopes.

“I think the direction that we’re heading in is one that’s in accordance with the city’s sustainability policy,” he said on Monday. “It’s very intriguing because large solar fields have not taken off in Maine like they have in other states. To be the first one exploring this and hopefully heading in that direction is exciting and, I think, very forward thinking.”

“It can have fantastic long-term benefits to the whole community, residents and businesses alike,” said Steve Hinchman, director of financing for Portland-based ReVision Energy, a company that designs, installs and services solar equipment for residential, commercial and municipal use in Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts.

“A solar array can also go a long way to stabilizing the power grid,” said Hinchman. “We know the grid in the Portland area is constrained and needs additional resources. So this would be a win-win-win for everybody.

“However, this is the kind of project that would only work if a coalition of partners came together to make it happen,” he added. “And, even so, it’s not going to be the kind of project that makes anybody rich.”

Still, says Hinchman, who has been working with South Portland since shortly after his company installed solar panels on the roof of the planning and development office on Ocean Street earlier this year, the promise of even a small profit may be enough to lure investors, given the environmental benefits.

As currently envisioned, South Portland’s solar farm would include between 1,500 and 1,600 photovoltaic panels like the ones on the planning office, each measuring 3 feet wide by 5 feet long. Those panels, covering about 2 acres of the capped landfill, would produce 400 kilowatts of power, or 500,000 kilowatt hours of energy per year.

That’s enough, says Hinchman, to erase 670,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year that would otherwise be pumped into the atmosphere using traditional means of power generation.

Still, that kind of scrubbing action does not come cheap. Hinchman estimates the solar array, as currently proposed, will cost $1.6 million.

And, while actual construction of the site would only take about six months, South Portland Planning Director Tex Haeuser says it’ll probably take two years to work through the regulatory hurdles at both the local and state level.

“This only happens if we find a partner,” said Haeuser.

“Tex and I have really thought long and hard about this,” said South Portland’s Assistant City Manager Jon Jennings, at last week’s meeting of the economic development committee. “I’m Robin to his Batman on this issue, and we’re working with ReVision to figure out the very convoluted system of tax credits that would benefit an investor. Still, we know the project is viable just from looking at Massachusetts. These kinds of solar arrays are on top of landfills all over the place down there.”

It was Haeuser who, two years ago, first hatched the idea of turning South Portland onto solar power. At that time, he was working on development ideas for a vacant property between the Wainwright Athletic Complex and the Scarborough town line.

“It’s a wonderful piece of property in that it’s industrially zoned and has rail access, but its road access is problematic for industrial purposes,” said Haeuser, on Friday.

Because the city would prefer to eliminate the volume of truck traffic that could potentially enter Highland Avenue from an industrial site, Haeuser tried to come up with alternative uses for the land. Haeuser got permission from the property owner to do some research on the possibility of a solar farm. The concept never worked out, but it was through that planning process that Haeuser made contact with ReVision.

That relationship paid off last year when the company pitched and sold the South Portland City Council on a smaller solar project, comprised of a series of photovoltaic panels placed on top of the planning office. ReVision also priced out putting solar panels on City Hall but that did not prove viable, largely because of the building’s alignment to the sun.

One benefit of the proposed solar farm is that homeowners in the same predicament as City Hall could still take advantage of renewable energy. The solar panels would pump power into the Central Maine Power grid and customers who choose the solar farm as their power supplier would see a credit on their power bills.

That makes the prospect a little different from the solar arrangement at the planning office. In that case, ReVision paid the $76,459 to install the panels and leases them to the city for a nominal fee under what it calls a “power purchase agreement.”

The city now buys its electricity from ReVision at a rate guaranteed to be 2 cents less per kilowatt hour than the rates it previously paid under a bulk purchase deal with Maine Power Options, 12 cents per kilowatt hour.

After six years, the city could continue to buy electricity from ReVision, or could buy the solar panels outright for $20,000.

According to Haeuser, the 19.2 kilowatt system, capable of generating 24,000 kilowatt hours of energy per year, has saved the city roughly 10 percent off its monthly energy bill since it went live earlier this year.

“These hot summer days, we’re making juice like crazy,” he said. “So, Stage 1 is accomplished. We’ve gotten our feet wet and everything seems to be working OK.”

Given the success, Gailey suggested a larger array of solar panels on the landfill, which was capped in the late 1980s. Unlike the planning office panels, where the incentive is lower energy bills, the solar farm would be a revenue stream for the city.

“We’d probably get some sort of fee for renting the location for the arrays,” said Gailey, “although how much that may be remains to be seen.”

In May, Haeuser met with officials from the Maine Department of Environmental Protection who were at the site to conduct routine methane checks.

“Well, the thing is there isn’t a solar array on a landfill anywhere in Maine yet,” said Haeuser.

Without any state guidelines, the DEP officials said they’d use rules established by the federal Environmental Protection Agency. What made DEP acceptance so easy, says Haeuser, is that the solar arrays ReVision would use sit on concrete slabs, meaning no digging into the landfill is required for foundation work.

“The federal government and the military both have solar arrays on landfills in Massachusetts and New Jersey, so there are certainly guidelines there, as well as in other states that have done this,” said Hichman. “This is a proven model and about the only development that’s even possible for a capped landfill.”

Still, while the possibilities appear bright, there are some storm clouds threatening the project. Some of the state’s rebate programs recently expired and with fewer tax incentives, Maine’s solar credits sell for $20 per megawatt hour on the open market, versus $285 in Massachusetts, says Hinchman.

However, Haeuser notes that Central Maine Power could soon have reason to become a partner in solar power. Currently, the company makes its money based on how much power it can push over its lines. However a new rate plan filed May 1 with the Public Utilities Commission seeks to “decouple” CMP’s revenue stream from electricity sales.

That way, the company will be free to align with power sources like the proposed South Portland solar farm, which, Hinchman says, make sense from a conservation standpoint because it is located in a population center, meaning less power lost along the transmission line, and because it produces the most power during peak demand periods, when air conditioners are running hot.

“Our current business model is predicated on people using electricity, but that’s in conflict with conservation and efficiency goals,” said CMP spokesman John Carroll.

“From a policy point of view, what we have now is backwards,” said Hinchman.

As part of the rate case approval process, which could take the balance of the year to work through, CMP cites lower electricity demand and increased labor costs, including pensions and “post-retirement” costs, for the higher rate it seeks.

If approved, the new rates would add $1.99 per month to the average single-family home using 525 kilowatt hours of electricity. That price hike would continue at slightly lower levels through the fifth year of the plan, ultimately adding more than $9 in all to the average residential bill.

Solar power and other alternative projects will only gain a real toehold when CMP is allowed to make money in ways beyond how much power it can push across its lines, says Hinchman.

“It’s critical for large solar to make headway in Maine, you need CMP to be a partner,” he said.

“Basically, we need to stop treating CMP like they’re the enemy,” agreed Haeuser.