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After a four-year struggle to get a 200-kilowatt solar array built on the top level of the Centennial parking plaza in downtown Bend, City Council last week authorized construction for a reduced-scale project.

Bend-based is expected to finish installing the 33-kilowatt array by the end of the year. But the latest plan comes after two failed attempts to approve a larger, third-party-financed system, and now that construction is set to begin, the company responsible for the design of the new system is questioning the installation contract.

City officials initially hoped to push forward a 200-kilowatt solar project in 2007. Sun Energy Power Corp. developed a plan to provide the capital for the installation, operation and maintenance of the system at no cost to the city. Investor money and grants would have provided the initial capital to buy the solar system, and the city would have purchased the power generated from the system at a guaranteed reduced rate for 10 to 20 years.

But Sun Energy Power could not coordinate the complicated financing necessary to push the project into construction, according to Bend’s downtown manager, Jeff Datwyler, who has acted as a project manager for the Centennial project for several years.

Instead of abandoning the engineering and design work when the project fell through, the city issued a request for proposals for another developer to take it on. Eugene-based Advanced Energy Systems won the bid in 2009 and lined up a San Francisco-based investor. But when project officials failed to secure , the investor pulled out of the deal.

鈥淭he problem was the third-party format,鈥� Datwyler said. 鈥淚t was just too difficult to get all of the financing to work out, and then the economy started to tank. It was just becoming less and less likely that we would see that third-party model become something we could pull together.鈥�

So the city scaled back its plans and hired to design a new project that could be constructed with the grant money already secured, including $400,000 from and approximately $40,000 from .

Unlike the previous two proposals, the city of Bend will own and operate the system. Through an agreement with Pacific Power, the city will be billed less for electricity, based on the amount of power the Centennial system adds to the grid.

Advanced Energy Systems bid to install the system, but it was underbid by Sunlight Solar Energy, which recently completed high-profile installations at the Facebook data center in Prineville, and at the BendBroadband Vault data center.

鈥淚t was a big surprise. We gave a very competitive price and knew every detail of the project,鈥� said Donald Spiek, solar projects manager at AES. 鈥淲e have concerns the project can be installed effectively at the price we saw from our competitor.鈥�

Sunlight Solar Energy won the contract for $229,813 鈥� an amount that the company’s founder and president Paul Israel said accounts for the appropriate profit margins.

鈥淲e feel strongly that our bid was intelligent and well done, and it saved the city some money,鈥� he said. 鈥淓veryone here has health care and we provide some of the higher wages in the state, relative to the rest of the solar industry.鈥�

The city of Bend estimates that the Centennial parking plaza project will be completed $90,000 under budget. Any remaining money will be returned to Pacific Power’s Blue Sky fund for future community projects.

, another Bend-based company, in the next couple of weeks will begin installing the steel superstructure that will support the panels.

The new array will be approximately one-third of the size of the original layout, but Datwyler said the city is still excited to have a visible renewable energy project in downtown Bend. And the system is designed with connection points able to accommodate future additions, he said.