New commercial and residential building projects in Cortez will be required to accommodate solar energy, high efficiency electric appliances and electric vehicles.
Cortez City Council approved the requirements on Tuesday in an ordinance updating building codes – a measure that sparked debate as council members worried about additional costs for housing developments.
“We're speaking with two tongues here,” Council Member April Randle said. “We want affordable housing and the state is mandating that we have affordable housing, and we're pushing this down at the same time that our housing costs are going up.”
The implementation of all updated codes, which will affect only the construction of new buildings, eventually passed with five “yes” votes and “no” votes from Randle and Council Member Clarisa Osborn.
Disagreement stemmed from the Colorado Model Electric Ready and Solar Ready Code, which the state mandates the city adopt by June 30. It requires property owners to ensure new buildings can accommodate electrical conduits and solar panels. The codes are meant to ensure property owners can transition to solar energy and electric appliances and vehicles, if they choose, in line with Colorado’s goal to achieve 100% renewable energy by 2040.
City Planner Jason Armstrong and Building Inspector Sean Canada spoke in favor of the solar and electric code.
“It would be some additional space in your breaker box, additional conduit run up into the attic. That's it,” Canada said, adding that most roofs already have the capacity to support solar panels.
Under the council-approved codes, city staff will create a waiver process, allowing new builds to bypass the Colorado Model Electric Ready and Solar Ready Code if the cost of compliance exceeds 1% of the total mechanical, electrical and plumbing construction costs. Canada said that only in rare instances would incorporating the new required infrastructure represent a significant cost burden.
“When you're going back and retrofitting a home is when that turns a little more costly,” City Manager Drew Sanders said. “Having done this in my personal home, I'm telling you, it really wasn't that much.”
Montezuma County Commissioner Kent Lindsay, vice president of Empire Electric, expressed concerns about the ability of Cortez’s electrical grid to withstand a dramatic increase in solar energy generation. While he didn’t provide the specific limits of the city’s electric grid, he said that rates for customers would need to be raised if the capacity were stretched.
“We already have one substation in our system that's at capacity now. Those substations are $5 million a piece. So, divide that by your rate payers,” Lindsay said. “Right now we can accept quite a bit, but down the road it's going to get to a point where we can't.”
Canada clarified the codes don’t require current or future property owners to incorporate solar energy or electric appliances into their homes or businesses.
“None of these homes or businesses are mandated to hook up to the electric grid immediately. You can still have gas. You can have everything else,” Canada said.
avanderveen@the-journal.com
