Dallas has secured a $2 million U.S. Department of Energy grant toward a solar power system at the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center campus, and the City Council is scheduled to vote on accepting it Dec. 9.
The council's Finance Committee gets a staff memo on the item when it meets at 1 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 17. According to the memo, from Assistant City Manager Alina Ciocan, the money is a congressionally directed earmark that traces back to the spring of 2022, when the city submitted project requests for the federal 2023 budget.
Congress picked the MLK campus solar project and signed it into law.
The grant requires a 50% cost share, so the city set aside $2 million of its own as a match. Combined, the memo says, the $4 million would pay to design and build rooftop solar panels across the campus and solar canopies over its parking.
The Energy Department approved the award in September, according to the memo.
How much power
Preliminary energy assessments put the possible size of the system at about 960 kilowatts, counting both rooftops and carports. Staff estimate it could offset about 80% of the campus's yearly electricity use, which the memo puts at roughly 2,000 megawatt-hours. The memo says the final size and savings will not be known until design is finished.
