SARANAC LAKE — Harrietstown is opting into a free community solar program, a move town board members hope will bring an 8% reduction to its energy costs while supporting clean power production.

The program, known as Community Distributed Generation, allows the town to indirectly claim solar power generated by a farm in New York.

“I feel like, as a local government, we should be a responsible consumer of energy,” town Supervisor Jordanna Mallach said. “It’s not an infinite resource.”

Plus, the town gets a share of the green power company’s energy credits to use as a discount on its utility bill for participating in this program.

Sam Doubleday, a community solar sales representative with the Omni Renewables company which the town plans to contract with, said the program is pretty complicated, but he does his best to summarize it.

“National Grid borrows your account number and assigns electricity that you consume to electricity going up to the grid from a solar farm,” Doubleday said.

In 2015, the state Public Service Commission implemented the CDG program, which allows and incentivizes this.

“Basically, it shows National Grid that the power generated in New York supports an account in New York,” Mallach said.

Harrietstown spent $26,755.39 on electricity in the past year, and should get around 10% back through the energy credits — which after other costs, comes out to around 8%, Doubleday said. Mallach said that will be more than $2,000 in savings annually. This would be more than $2,000 the town would be able to put toward other expenses or reduce taxes with.

The power produced by the solar farm is added to the electric grid. It’s not like there’s lines directly linking the panels to the town, Doubleday said. The change is all done in the accounting. By matching up power generated with a specific user account — in this case, the town of Harrietstown — National Grid can measure solar energy allocated between the two.

Mallach called it a “paperwork drill.”

Through paperwork, this program links the town’s National Grid account to a new Omni Renewables solar array in Jefferson County.

This solar farm was built recently, and when it goes online, Doubleday said the town should start seeing discounts later this year.

The town has numerous energy accounts — for street lights, the town-operated airport, Dewey Mountain, the town hall and the outdoor skating rick at the Civic Center.

The town’s energy provider will still be National Grid. This program tells National Grid to spend the town’s utility bill on solar energy from a specific farm, “reserving” electricity from its panels.

Nancy Bernstein, who works with the Adirondack North Country Association and is a subcontractor for the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority’s Clean Energy Communities program, brought the idea to the town. Bernstein said this program is a way for the town to take advantage of solar power without needing to install panels itself. It’s like renting solar panels, she said.

These incentives are good for solar farm developers, she said. By getting people, companies and municipalities to subscribe to their services with credits as incentives, they support renewable energies and promote their development by helping fund new solar farms.

The state is trying to move away from burning fossil fuels when it produces power.

This program was created by the state to help it meet the requirements of its Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, which is aimed at reducing harmful greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2023 and 85% by 2050.

The program also gives other perks for the town — such as getting points through NYSERDA’s Community Energy Engagement Program — which allow the town to seek new grants for more infrastructure work.

The solar power industry is small now. On Sunday, solar power made up less than 2% of all the energy produced in New York, according to live data from the New York Independent System Operator’s real-time dashboard, which tracks energy usage in the state. But Doubleday said the field is growing. New solar arrays — often built on old landfills — are being built around the state. He said large farms are not needed. Having medium-sized farms all over makes the grid more resilient.

Doubleday said Harrietstown is the furthest north town they now have a contract with.

He said renewables will never fully replace fossil fuel energy — that would require a massive scaling up of nuclear power, he said — but harvesting energy from the sun is still an important part of the transition.

Bernstein said she hopes the town opting in to this program will make it a local leader, and she is encouraging others to join the program. Any building owner, private or public, can join. Doubleday said this includes municipalities; grocery stores like Hannaford and Kinney Drugs; churches; farms and homeowners.

Councilwoman Tracey Schrader said she’s had a CDG contract for her own home for 6 years. She said “nothing changes” with how she gets her power, except she now gets a check annually.

“We just got a check a couple week ago,” Schrader said. “It wasn’t much, just $33. But it’s better than nothing.”

She encourages people to sign up for these programs herself.

“I think it’s wise. We need to move in that direction,” she said.

The village of Saranac Lake is in the midst of enabling a Community Choice Aggregation agreement. This would allow village residents and businesses to purchase more renewable energy through their monthly bills. People would need to opt out of this program if it is finalized. The village is currently contracting with a company to get estimates for energy rates from renewable energies before making a final decision on this program.