Red Lodge will soon be using the sun to power new, more energy-efficient equipment at its wastewater treatment plant, Mayor Betsy Scanlin announced this week.

"We're capturing the tide of technology," she said Thursday. "I'm very excited about it. At a minimum it will be used for 20 to 30 years and by then even better technology will be available."

For months, the mayor's Climate Protection Committee has been fine-tuning the $458,000 project. At its meeting this week, the City Council voted its unanimous approval.

A stimulus grant through the Montana Department of Environmental Quality will pay 52 percent of the costs, Scanlin said. No rate increase will be needed to cover the $159,000 loan for the balance. The loan, also from the state, has a 0.75 percent interest rate and is payable over 20 years.

The new project includes variable-speed drives for blowers that supply oxygen in the sewage ponds. An array of solar panels will provide electricity for the blowers.

The project was proposed by the mayor's committee, which surveyed the city's energy use and found that the blowers were the second-highest user of electricity, she said. Street lights are the main consumer of electricity. Energy reductions there are still under consideration, but street lights have proven more problematic, the mayor said.

New drives for the blowers are designed to eliminate manual operation and surges of electrical use that result in "high demand" charges for electricity of $8 per kilowatt hour.

"I applaud the Climate Protection Committee for its members' diligence and commitment to presenting a viable project," Scanlin said at the council meeting. "I also applaud the city staff for its role in fine-tuning the project, and City Council for both its scrutiny of the proposal as well as its foresightedness that will benefit the city for years to come."

The project will be completed next year.