After nearly two hours of passionate and sometimes contentious debate, Aquinnah voters agreed to back a plan to install 200 solar panels at the town landfill at a special town meeting Wednesday night.

The town will sign a contract with Vineyard Power to build the 50-kilowatt system, which will produce up to 60,000 kilowatt hours a year, enough electricity to power all the town buildings and street lights. The town will save an estimated 10 per cent in actual electricity costs per year through tax credits and renting the landfill to Vineyard Power. If the town exercises an option to buy the panels at the end of 10 years, its electricity costs will for the most part disappear.

In a standing vote, the article passed 29-13. It was the only article on the warrant.

This is the first solar project for the Island-based energy cooperative.

“We should be congratulating the town,” Vineyard Power president Richard Andre said yesterday afternoon. “We’re very excited and looking forward to developing our first project. It’s especially nice — our first project is for the public.”

Vineyard Power still needs approval from the Aquinnah planning board, state department of environmental protection, and an interconnection agreement from NStar.

Site work is expected to begin Feb. 1 with the arrays operational by April.

On Wednesday night a divided group of voters pressed Mr. Andre and Vineyard Power board president Paul Pimentel for details about the project.

“In essence the municipal buildings are using the same grid connection that we’re using today and these lights will not be powered by solar power,” Ken Wentworth said pointing to the lights in the old town hall. “I find it misleading in essence that we’re using solar energy down there . . . we’re still going to be using the same electricity . . . which is why it’s going to cost the same,” he said.

“Technically what he said is true,” Mr. Pimentel said. “You will continue to use electrons from NStar to light your lights. The electric power you’re making with the photovoltaic panels is displacing electricity from being made someplace else . . . figuratively saying it displaces the power made by a power plant or coal plant. That much energy is not being made at those plants.”

Elise LeBovit questioned the need for Vineyard Power to be involved, asking why the town could not regulate their own panels.

“It seems like the point of solar is to have less of a carbon footprint and to have the smallest footprint, the more direct you can go the better,” she said. “Why wouldn’t we want to go directly with panels at the town hall and buy them directly ourselves instead of having a power company to our town?”

Selectman Jim Newman said the town could not afford the $340,000 needed to install the array.

“What we’re doing is putting back into the grid what we’re using here, that’s using renewable energy, the sun,” he said. “It may not be coming in here directly, but what we’re taking out we’re putting it back in. That seems to make an awful amount of sense to me. That’s one little measure for mankind. The fact that we don’t own it and we can craft a contract that is acceptable to us is enough. We don’t need ownership and with their ownership they take care of the device, they insure it, why do we want that burden?”

The town will spend nothing on the array, which is being financed through a $190,000 investment from a family from Edgartown and a $150,000 loan from Edgartown National Bank, Mr. Andre said. He said investors are not likely to get any direct monetary return from their investment, possibly $175,000, but will see a return in 10 years from electricity and renewable energy credits and tax incentives from the federal government.

Under the agreement, the town will have the option to buy the solar panels from Vineyard Power after 10 years. If they choose not to, Vineyard Power will continue to operate the array. If the town chooses to buy the panels they would pay fair market value, estimated at around $50,000. If the town ends the contract with Vineyard Power after 10 years, the town will have to pay for the disposal of the panels.

Time was a factor in signing the agreement due to a tax incentive offer from the government that expires on Dec. 31. Vineyard Power needs to spend at least five per cent of the cost by that date to be eligible for the credits; Mr. Andre said yesterday they’ve already begun purchasing the equipment.

The panels are expected to generate about $14,000 worth of electricity a year, the same amount the town pays for its electric bills annually. The state will provide the town with renewable energy credits amounting to about $3,000 a year and Vineyard Power will rent the landfill for $400 a month.

The panels are expected to last 25 to 30 years and will lose about one per cent of their efficiency every year they produce. The panels are from SunQuest in California and made of polysilicon, which is not toxic. The material that holds the panel is made of a material that has some hazardous qualities at the time of construction and disposal but not at operation, Mr. Pimentel said. The panels are not flammable.

Disposing of the panels would cost around $5,000, Mr. Andre said, and they would be recycled through a solar panel consortium off-Island.

Maureen Williams, who is an abutter to the landfill, urged her fellow voters to look beyond the numbers.

“I can understand why people are focusing on the finances, that’s always what you do . . . we’re all suspicious of it because some people are obviously making money and they’re doing this not because they’re heartfelt about solar panels,” she said. “Whether we go with this contract or not, it shouldn’t be about the money, it’s about the planet and it’s about doing the right thing. It’s so small when you consider it . . . but perhaps it will snowball in other towns seeing this happening and other kinds of ideas that people will have for alternative energy. It’s time.”