With the stroke of a pen wielded by Governor Dannel Malloy, Newtown can launch into a new era of energy generation using "virtual net metering." Upon the governor's signing of a pending bill that permits Newtown and about a dozen other communities to begin utilizing the practice, construction of a completely third party-maintained solar farm in town will commence, and a new era of taxpayer cost savings that will have measurable impact on the environment will result.

According to EnergizeCT.com, virtual net metering allows customers like Newtown with its proposed solar farm to produce what is referred to as behind-the-meter generation - assigning surplus production from their generator (the solar farm) to other metered accounts that are not physically connected to the host's generator.

Public Works Director Fred Hurley says once the solar farm is up and running adjacent to the Newtown landfill, it will produce an average one-megawatt of power annually, which is enough to completely power 500 average-sized homes for a year. And it will do so with clean, sustainable and recyclable resources.

"I guess the governor has a stack of bills to sign on his desk about a mile high," Mr Hurley said, referring to legislation that will immediately permit Newtown and its counterpart communities to move forward with plans to implement the energy-saving initiative along with a partner developer that will construct and maintain the solar farm.

"You take a useless piece of land and make it productive," the public works chief explained. "The cost of electricity we're going to obtain as a result will be below the current market rate with no escalation for 25 years. So we'll lower the cost of powering at least some of our town facilities and we'll enjoy that flat, stable rate for 25 years, so we'll be able to plan and budget with more precision."

He said the solar farm electricity generated each day, irrelevant of the amount, goes into the electrical power grid, and no matter which facilities are targeted for the virtual net metering program, Newtown will receive the "solar assisted electrical rate" of 6.3 cents per kilowatt for the next 25 years for between 1.7 to 1.8 million kilowatt hours annually, as opposed to 9 or 10 cents, which Newtown is currently paying.

Mr Hurley said plans were initiated to build the solar farm in January 2014.

He said all Connecticut electricity customers pay into a fund to offset alternate energy distribution, and the savings flow in the form of credits to the developer of the solar project. Those credits are applied, in effect, to maintain a below market per kilowatt-hour rate.

The town does not put up any cash whatsoever to complete the solar installation, Mr Hurley said. The town simply pays for the generated power it uses through virtual net metering for its buildings.

"The electricity that is generated at the landfill can be applied to any building in town because they are drawing from the commodity from the grid pool - and just like with gas or oil - the commodity can come from anywhere," he said. "We get to buy the solar-generated power at a reduced rate - that flat fee for the next 25 years.

"The taxpayers locally obviously benefit, but it also benefits everyone in the state because we're building a growing network of Connecticut-generated power," he said. "That will reduce the escalated congestion charges that we all pay during peak periods of usage. The more generation we can keep in state, the less pressure there will be to draw from other premium-priced resources during peak usage periods."

While the solar panels will slowly begin to degrade over time, at 25 years Mr Hurley said the technology would still generate upward of 1.8 million kilowatt hours of power annually. Then, when it is time to replace or rethink the project, all the materials involved can be reused or recycled.

That collateral planet-saving benefit is particularly exciting to the public works chief.

"Think about the costs involved that still accrue to the ratepayer when solar generation facilities are decommissioned, or even coal-fired, oil, gas, or garbage burning power plants. Besides cutting all the CO2 and greenhouse emissions being generated every day, the worry about storing of used nuclear fuel rods or the disposing of slag or other residue is eliminated completely," he said. "All we'll have is glass, plastic and metal - all recyclable. And new panes can go up that we can recycle again.

"While the longer-term payoff to the planet is a smaller carbon footprint, there is no hazardous material to dispose of is a huge advantage," he said. "It seems so obvious. It just makes sense on all levels. When critics of solar talk about the added costs, they seldom if ever are taking into account the long-term lingering costs related to the disposal costs related to a fossil or nuclear fuel power plant."