City of Asheville issued the following announcement on Apr.11.
Recently the City of Asheville “flipped the switch” on a photovoltaic array, commonly known as solar panels, at the Linwood Crump Shiloh Community Center on Shiloh Road. This is the fifth City facility to include onsite renewable energy production. This completes the City’s portion of projects included in the joint initiative to install solar panels on City of Asheville, Buncombe County, Asheville City Schools, Buncombe County Schools and AB-Tech facilities.
The joint initiative included an interlocal agreement between the City of Asheville Buncombe County back in 2019 to issue one construction solicitation for a total of 45 sites at City, County, Asheville City Schools, Buncombe County Schools and AB-Tech. The total renewable energy capacity from the combined construction bid is just shy of seven megawatts (MW). The four sites included in this joint initiative that are on City property are located at Burton St. Community Center, Fire Station #10, Fire Station #11 and Linwood Crump Shiloh Community Center. The total renewable energy capacity from the City’s projects is 156 kilowatts (kW).
Installation of the solar panels supports Council’s strategic goal of A Clean and Healthy Environment and the 100% Renewable Energy Initiative.
The electricity generated from all of the panels will be utilized onsite. When the solar panels produce more electricity than the building needs, that energy will be sent back to the grid in exchange for credits. At night, or at times when the solar panels are under-producing, the City will pull energy from the grid and use these credits to offset the costs of that energy. This is known as a “net-metered” system.
These installations have come online between December 2021 – February, 2021. As of April 5, 2022, these 4 solar systems have collectively produced over 50 megawatt hours (MWh) of clean renewable energy. That is 35.6 metric tons of carbon emissions that have been avoided and will contribute to the City’s carbon reduction goal. This is equivalent to 4,000 gallons of gasoline consumed, energy to power 5 homes for one year, and carbon sequestered by 588 tree seedlings grown for 10 years…in just 3 months!
Want to follow along and see how much energy this and the rest of the City’s solar panels are producing? Check out our real-time monitoring web page!
For more information on Sustainability initiatives, please visit ashevillenc.gov/sustainability.
Original source can be found here.
Source: City of Asheville
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