Draper received a $170,600 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy and finished installing solar panels on the roof of city hall this month as it begins its campaign to be a more energy efficient city.

The city first applied for and was awarded the grant in August 2009 when the City Council unanimously voted in favor of applying for it. Spokeswoman Maridene Hancock said the city was not required to compete for the funding, so, "we weren't too worried about not getting it."

Draper has a population of approximately 43,000.

Hancock said the first purchase was for solar panels on the roof of City Hall. She said the installation of the solar panels would cut the energy consumption in the building by almost 5 percent.

The solar panels and the installation ate up $110,000 of the grant money and were installed the first week of January.

Brien Maxfield, an engineer with the city, said they chose a Solyndra System for the roof — 96 panels that are actually rods placed close together in rectangles. Each rectangle with the rods is independent of the next panel, meaning they can take advantage of sunlight coming from different directions throughout the day. He said they're more lightweight and because they're rods, snow and wind go between them instead of on them — as opposed to flat panel sheets.

"It's a big advantage given the weather we get," he said.

Maxfield also said the city installed a white roof beneath the solar panels to increase sun reflection to generate more energy.

The only thing left to install related to the solar system is the display monitor in the lobby of City Hall so residents can see how much energy is being consumed. Once that is in place, Maxwell said, residents will then be able to go online and see how much energy the panels are generating and how much energy is being consumed.

Hancock said that monitoring system would be installed by the end of the month.

The rest of the grant money, Hancock said, is being used to replace old bulbs in 26 traffic lights with energy-efficient LED bulbs along 114th East. The bulbs are already with the city, but installation won't begin until road construction along the street is finished in several months.

Hancock said the grant money also allows the city to run a class for Draper residents where they can learn to make their own homes more energy efficient.

"That was the biggest driver behind the grant," Hancock said. "We wanted to show people how they could save themselves money."

The grant was originally written to install a wind turbine at Point of the Mountain, but Hancock said tests determined not enough power would be generated from a turbine there and so the grant had to be rewritten.

dmontero@sltrib.com —

Energy Efficiency

Installing solar panels atop City Hall with a new weather-resistant, multiangle design is expected to cut energy consumption of the building by 5 percent. Plans call for hooking up a display monitor in the lobby so residents can see just how much energy is being consumed. Residents eventually will be able to go online to see how much power the solar conversion is producing.