Lebanon — Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center has submitted conceptual drawings to the city of Lebanon for a 1.25-megawatt solar array that would occupy unused parts of its existing parking lots.

City officials said they likely will review the project early next month, but noted that a formal application hasn’t yet been filed.

Although hospital employees said the design is not final, the array could produce as much as 1.5 million kilowatt-hours annually, meeting about 2.3 percent of the Dartmouth-Hitchcock’s electricity demands.

“I think that’s noteworthy,” hospital spokesman Mike Barwell said. “It doesn’t sound like a lot …”

“… But we use a lot of power,” interjected Director of Engineering Services Steve Cutter, who on Friday spoke with Barwell over the phone about the project.

The conceptual drawing shows four unpaved areas around the hospital’s Lot 20 where arrays could be sited. The number of panels is up in the air for now, but for the Upper Valley, at least, the project could be considered a large one, Cutter said.

“If you’re out in the Midwest, this might be considered small,” he said, “but if you look in the area there’s a lot of arrays that are smaller than this.”

An accompanying news release said the array would not take up any existing parking spots, adding that the hospital would try to keep disruption to employees at a minimum.

Officials chose that particular lot, the release said, because it stands close to the hospital power plant and would require “minimal tree clearing” to site the array. It also would have “a negligible impact on wetlands and wildlife.”

Dartmouth-Hitchcock will not incur any capital costs for the project, which would be the hospital’s first solar array, according to the release.

As with many other solar projects in the region, the hospital has made an agreement with a private solar contractor — in this case Ameresco, an energy company based in Framingham, Mass. — wherein the contractor puts down the capital to build the array and the hospital commits to buy power at a fixed price.

Over the expected life of the array, which is about 20 years, and based on the projected cost of electricity, hospital officials expect to save about $477,000 over that time.

The Lebanon Planning Board is scheduled to conduct a conceptual review of the project during its next meeting on May 9, city Associate Planner Margaret Howard-Heretakis said.

Howard-Heretakis emphasized the meeting would be “just a discussion.”

Instead, city employees are looking to better understand the vision behind the project, which she said was new to Lebanon. Dartmouth-Hitchcock might apply for a site-plan review later, she said.

“We’ve never had a full-blown solar array” sited on land that’s already in use, she said.

Rob Wolfe can be reached at rwolfe@vnews.com or at 603-727-3242.