It’s now up the town to prepare the way for a grand entrance.
“I would like to keep going with this until either one of two things happen,” Mills said, regarding a plan to have an Austrian company set up a solar panel manufacturing plant in Truro
“A, this thing takes off or, B, the door is finally shut. But I really believe the potential is there for the doors to swing wide open.”
Mills has been in discussions with the photovoltaic company Hilber Solar for about 18 months regarding the possibility of establishing a manufacturing facility in Truro. Last November, two tractor-trailer loads of solar panels, valued at $150,000, were delivered to Truro from the company to be used as demonstration units.
On Thursday night, trustee lawyer and company partner Dr. Rainer Geisler met with Mills and town council to update the process.
“I thought it went rather well. I thought it was quite fantastic,” Mills said, of the meeting.
One of the primary concerns addressed by council, Mills said, surrounded publicity that arose last year about the company applying for bankruptcy.
“It wasn’t forced upon them. It was something that they did because they didn’t want to lose further money as a result of some things that happened politically over in Germany,” he said.
“There are possibilities here that far, far exceed solar panels alone. It’s a whole system,” Mills added, regarding the potential for introducing other green initiatives such as biogas and nanotechnology operations.
Mills said plans are in the works for the president of Hilber to visit Truro in April to meet with interested businesses operations.
In the meantime, it is up to the town to check into the possibilities of having the solar panel initiative become part of the province’s COMFIT Program and to determine what kind of power rates can be negotiated for the plant’s operations.
“Hopefully, by then council will have some answers on the COMFIT program and some other issues as well,” he said. “But overall I was very pleased with it and I still believe 150 per cent in the potential of this project.”
