Some new information about the plan to put solar panels in the Maryland Science Center’s parking lot emerged at last night’s meeting of the Federal Hill Neighborhood Association.

About 30 people gathered to hear a presentation by Science Center executive director Van R. Reiner and Benjamin Levy, one of the Constellation Energy Group engineers working on the project.

Versions of the project have been running into objections from Federal Hill community, which is closest to the Science Center’s parking lot off Key Highway. That’s where, under the latest iteration, the panels would sit on carport-type structures, tall enough to allow cars to park under them.

(One proposal, to put the solar panels closer to the front of the building, near the school group entrance, ran afoul of the Urban Design & Architecture Review Panel. They wanted “a port cochere” and pointed out that the location triggered provisions of the Critical Areas law and would mean replacing each cut-down tree with 20 new ones.)

Reiner said the solar panel project was the natural outgrowth of  the center’s efforts to go as “green” as possible, with a rain garden, green roof and solar panels installed on top of the Imax in 2005.

“Our mission is to explain science and technology and to basically excite the next generation of innovators,” said Reiner. “We felt we had an obligation to explain how solar panels work and have a demonstration project.”

Most of the questions from residents could be described as ‘polite but concerned’ but one speaker rose solely to deliver an unequivocal condemnation of the plan.

“This will be a permanent industrial eyesore in the Inner Harbor for 20 years,” said Nolan North, who lives within view of the proposed solar array, in the 700 block of Williams St.

“This is right in my front yard. We are very concerned about it and very opposed to it,” he said.

Asked after the meeting if he planned to do anything about it, he said bitterly : “Watch my property values go down.”

Here’s some information gleaned from the speakers during and after the meeting, with a few questions appended.

(If Ben Levy or any of the other principals reading would like to answer, they are welcome to):

– Reiner said the panels would generate about 90,000 kilowatts a year and that this would, presuming sunny days, represent 10 percent of the center’s electrical consumption. (What kind of sunny day presumption is built in here?) At a previous meeting, the savings to the Science Center was expressed as $450 off their $33,000 monthly electric bill.

– Reiner describes the project as primarily for educational purposes but also noted last night that it takes away 70 tons of CO2 from the atmosphere per year.  (The amount that would be produced by generating 90,000 kilowatts from Constellation’s coal-powered Brandon Shores plant. He said it is the equivalent of 15 automobiles’ worth of yearly CO2 output.)

– The slanting top of the solar structures would be 7 ½ feet tall at their lowest point and more than 10 feet tall at the highest point, Levy said, after the meeting.

– Asked after the meeting the cost of the project to Constellation, Levy and principal project engineer Eric Giosa said they estimate it at about a half million dollars. They said it will generate State of Maryland Solar Renewable Energy Credits for Constellation, as well as federal investment tax credits. Here’s an article discussing Constellation’s solar strategy.

– In response to North’s comment, Levy said the design “does its best to minimize impact on the view.” He said “it sits at best six or seven feet above the sidewalk level of the upper lot….at that point you’re seeing a hill, the carousel or asphalt.”

– Constellation has done a similar, though larger-scale, version of the solar parking project, in New Jersey, according to Levy and Giosa. It’s at the Benjamin Moore & Co. Research and  Development facility in Mt. Olive.

“Solar panels are outfitted onto roof structures over  the parking lot, doubling as a way to provide some  weather protection to cars, and there are also panels on open fields,” according to a story that ran last month in the local Daily Record.

The article described the project as “a 1.7 megawatt, 8,600 panel solar power system on its Route 206 campus that is expected to begin satisfying 68 percent of the facility’s energy needs.”

– Asked, by resident Sandy Apgar, of Warren Avenue, about the glare from the panels from the crest of Federal Hill, “one of the most important urban views in the nation,”  Levy said studies used to evaluate glare issues for pilots and said they show that the panels being used “are very non-reflective.”

– Susan Burgess, of Montgomery Street, asked how permanent the structures would be and if permitting them at the Harbor “becomes the normal” that allows similar projects there in the future.

Irene Van Sant, of the Baltimore Development Corporation, fielded that one. “If there is a redevelopment of Rash Field and the panels need to be moved, the Science Center has agreed to this and will move them,” she said. She also said the Urban Renewal Plan for the area  would prevent the building of any other lots. “This doesn’t lead to anything,” she said, “it doesn’t affect the carousel.”

– Paul W. Robinson, the president of the neighborhood association and the chair of the meeting, raised the issue of the 1-A Urban Renewal Ordinance and noted that it designates a specific Williams St. view corridor.

“It does appear this does incur into the view corridor,” he said. No one seemed to clearly contradict him.