Long Beach wins grant to install solar panels
Published 4:18 pm Sunday, November 2, 2025
LONG BEACH — Thousands of dollars in potential annual savings are on the table for the City of Long Beach after it was recently awarded a state grant to install solar panels at a city facility.
Long Beach received notice from the Washington State Department of Commerce on Oct. 8 that its application to install solar panels at the city’s fire station at 701 Washington Ave. N, was selected to receive $316,185 in grant funding. The city is required to cover 5% in matching funds for the project; around $16,000.
The funding comes through the department’s Clean Energy Grants program, which prioritizes construction-ready projects aimed at increasing access to reliable and affordable energy, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and aligning with state energy strategies. More than $41 million was initially awarded to 49 projects across the state, the majority of which were solar-related.
The city’s application was not originally selected to receive funding, according to Long Beach Deputy City Administrator Ariel Smith, but was ultimately awarded after further funding became available through the grant program. The contract was formally signed in late October, allowing the city to start incurring costs.
The installation of solar panels at the fire station will reduce electricity costs and make the building more energy-efficient, said Smith and David Glasson, the city’s administrator. While noting that he’s still reading up on the final agreement with the PUD, Glasson said the intention is for the fire station to be “net metered” — meaning the city will receive billing credit for the power the solar panels generate, with any usage that the exceeds what the solar panels generate being billed on the “net.”
“We will generate a surplus during most days and have to use power at night or during inclement weather,” said Glasson, adding that the fire station’s electricity bill ranges from a low of about $250 during the summer months to a high of more than $1,000 in the colder months.
In all, Glasson estimates that the city has paid about $9,000 annually for power at the fire station over the past three years.
Long Beach was also looking at installing solar panels at its wastewater plant during the same funding cycle for Commerce’s clean energy grant program, Glasson said, “but the application wasn’t going to score well, so we decided the fire station was the better option.” With the grant program only requiring a local match of 5%, he added that the city would like to add solar panels at both the water and wastewater plants because of how much power they require to operate.