Going solar? Lansdale business could make the case for solar panels

One of the borough’s biggest businesses could soon go green, in a big way.

Rex Heat Treat, located on Eighth Street, could make the case to a borough board later this month for a new solar array to help power its operations.

“They’re looking to install a ground-mounted solar array, to help offset some of their electrical needs there,” said Director of Community Development Jason Van Dame.

“That is considered an additional use on the property, that is not by right permitted in the industrial district, so it’ll be for a special exception to allow for that additional use there,” he said.

Founded in 1938 by J. Walter Rex and business partner Elmer Erb, the 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.

At that time, borough officials said that Rex Heat Treat employs dozens of local employees and pays between $50,000 and $65,000 per month for electricity supplied by the borough while sponsoring town events and local charities and nonprofits.

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.

    A worker in a production area at Rex Heat Treat in Lansdale removes a metal part following a quenching procedure.
 By Media News Group media   

During the council’s code enforcement committee meeting on June 5, Van Dame previewed a presentation the town’s zoning hearing board will see on June 18, seeking permission from Rex to install the solar array, along with another request.

“They are also looking to develop a 6,000-square-foot storage building, and they have a setback issue” regarding the distance from a residential district that requires approval from the ZHB, Van Dame said: “They’ll be looking for relief on those two issues.”

Councilman Rich DiGregorio asked if those new solar arrays would go through the code committee and be inspected by borough staff, similar to the solar arrays the town itself installed atop borough hall on Vine Street and at the town’s wastewater treatment plant on Ninth Street in 2020-21. Van Dame said the company would first need the zoning board approval for the additional use, then would need to go through the town’s planning commission and council for land development plan approval, prior to securing building permits.

“It’s the same contractor that did the solar arrays for the borough, so they’ve been very much in touch with the electric department. A large part of the conversation has been about the amount of generation,” Van Dame said.

    Rows of newly-installed solar panels can be seen atop the roof of Lansdale’s Borough Hall on Wednesday, Jan. 13 2021.
 Lansdale Borough   

The two borough arrays are roughly 225 panels atop the borough hall and between 900 and 1,000 panels at the wastewater plant, Van Dame added, and the proposed Rex array could be slightly larger than the latter. Mayor Garry Herbert, who has pushed for more borough-owned solar elsewhere in town to cut down on growing electrical transmission costs, said the borough panels already running have made a big difference in the town’s electric bills.

“The amount of power they generate takes nearly the whole wastewater treatment plant off the grid. So we’re talking a lot of power,” Herbert said.

Lansdale’s zoning hearing board next meets at 7 p.m. on June 18 and the borough council next meets at 7 p.m. on June 20, both at the borough municipal building, 1 Vine Street. For more information visit www.Lansdale.org.

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