Lansdale votes ahead Rex Heat Treat solar panels

One of the biggest businesses in the borough is going green, and Lansdale has given them key approvals to do so.

Council has approved plans by Rex Heat Treat to install a solar panel array on Eighth Street.

“That’s over an acre of solar panels that are to be installed. They have this extra space here, and wanted to put up the solar panels, and my understanding is that’s going to take care of 16 percent of their electric bill, is what they’re anticipating,” said engineer Jason Smeland.

Founded in 1938 by J. Walter Rex and business partner Elmer Erb, Rex Heat Treat is a four-generation family business started in a two-car garage in the borough and was founded to heat treat metal components, including World War II weaponry for the Army and Navy, according to a company history and MediaNews Group archives. The company moved in 1958 from its first location on Third Street to the current site on West Eighth Street and is “in the business of heat treating, hardening and tempering of metal parts,” company officials said when recognized by the borough in 2011 for seven decades of business in town.

In 2018, the town awarded a discount on their electric bills through an expansion of Lansdale’s economic incentive discount program and said the company’s electric bills had grown to $70,000 to $80,000 per month and would continue to grow after planned expansion projects. In June, staff told council’s code committee that Rex, the town’s largest user of electricity, was seeking approvals to install a new solar array, and on Dec. 4 Smeland presented details to council’s code committee.

“If you’re not familiar with Rex Heat Treat, the heat treating is changing the properties of the metal, for a bunch of different people with different products. They know the science behind treating the metal appropriately to get the desired performance out of it, but that takes a ton of energy, because it’s all heat,” he said.

    Lansdale councilman Mike Yetter, right, and resident Bruce Schwartz view plans for a proposed solar panel array, shaded in blue, and a new building outlined in purple at the Rex Heat Treat property on Eighth Street in Lansdale during the code committee meeting on Dec. 4, 2024.
 By Dan Sokil | The Reporter   

As he spoke, Smeland showed the committee a site plan for the proposed array, depicting a total of 12 rows totaling roughly 1,100 solar panels running along the Squirrel Lane side of Rex’s property, angled roughly perpendicular to a borough property line and utility lines running along the east side of the site. Between those panels and the existing Rex buildings, a new garage would also be added, totaling roughly 6,000 square feet to be used for storage of equipment that’s already kept onsite, the engineer said.

“They had to go to the zoning hearing board to get a variance, because of the setback requirements between residential and institutional (zoning),” Smeland said.

“There’s a building setback requirement of 200 feet from a residential area from building,” Smeland said, showing where homes on the opposite side of Squirrel Lane are closer than that minimum: “Obviously, it couldn’t meet that, so they went to the zoning hearing board and got that relief granted.”

The zoning board’s approval did include a condition that the company add buffer plantings along that side of the property, which the company has agreed to do, and the building will be added on land that’s already paved so no new impervious coverage will be added.

“It’s not really changing how they use the property at all, they’re just going to store (equipment) in a place that’s not in the weather,” Smeland said.

Because of the minimal impact to the site, the engineer told the committee, the company is asking the committee and full council to waive the full land development process, while still allowing the public to weigh in via the code committee and council approvals. Talks at the borough’s planning commission addressed the buffering and stormwater runoff on the site, and Smeland said the panels should minimally slow or obstruct any rainfall onto the site.

“The panels themselves, they don’t move. This isn’t an array that will track the sun, they’re stationary,” and should be about six feet tall when installed, he said: “They’re not overly intrusive, or very large, and they’re stationary.”

Borough Director of Community Development Jason Van Dame said Rex does “a lot of work for the military, and they are expanding, adding kilns that are electric-powered kilns, so they do take a tremendous amount of electricity,” and pointed out that the site was remediated via the federal Superfund program.

“They think it’s an especially good use of a property that they were able to remediate, to create some green energy,” he said.

    A production area at Rex Heat Treat in Lansdale. (Credit: MediaNews Group)
  

Mayor Garry Herbert — who has advocated for more local solar generation throughout the town — asked about the total electric generation of the array, and Smeland said it was projected to generate roughly 500,000 watts or 0.5 megawatts of power, which Van Dame said is “a fraction of their use.” No public improvements would be required offsite, and all review letters from borough consultants have been addressed and will be complied with.

The code committee voted the project ahead for full council approval, which happened unanimously with no further discussion on Dec. 18. Smeland said, “They want to start tomorrow,” with the panels likely to be installed before the new building.

Electric superintendent Andy Krauss added that the roughly half a megawatt of electricity Rex would generate by the new solar panels compares to a total of 14 to 15 megawatts used by the entire town daily, and as much as 36 on hot summer days, and said the loss in electricity bought by Rex to the borough would likely be partially offset by increased usage there, and usage when the panels would be offline after dark.

“The demand doesn’t care if the sun’s out or not,” he said.

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