Solar panels are coming to the Tisbury Senior Center, and a grant from an Island firm will add battery storage for the rooftop array.

Vineyard Power, a business formed in 2009 to promote renewable energy on the Vineyard, will grant the town up to $236,000 for the project, Luke Lefeber told the Tisbury select board last week.

Mr. Lefeber is Vineyard Power’s controller and renewable development manager.

“The select board and the town will be recipients of these funds,” Mr. Lefeber said at the Nov. 5 select board meeting.

The senior center was selected for the solar and battery project by the Cape and Vineyard Electric Cooperative, he said, and will produce energy for the town through an agreement with a developer also chosen by the cooperative.

“[This] is essentially a mechanism to finance this project through a third-party developer. So the town will put no money down to develop this project,” Mr. Lefeber said.

Instead, the town will pay for electricity from the system on a kilowatt-hour basis, he said.

The expense of adding battery storage, however, would hike the electricity rate to an unsustainable degree, Mr. Lefeber said.

“What my organization is doing is effectively subsidizing those additional costs,” he said.

The batteries are expected to store three to six hours’ worth of backup electricity, he said.

The Cape and Vineyard Electric Cooperative is currently negotiating a contract with the developer, said Mr. Lefeber.