Taking advantage of local and federal incentives to help pay for the project, McElroy Metal added solar panels to its manufacturing plant in Sunnyvale, Texas.
McElroy Metal, based in Bossier City, Louisiana, has added solar panels to four of its manufacturing sites. In addition to the most recent Sunnyvale project, McElroy has completed successful solar panel installations in Peachtree, Georgia; Adelanto, California; and Clinton, Illinois.
“Installing solar panels on a standing seam roof like the one produced by McElroy Metal is the most cost-effective way to complete a solar installation,” says Mark Rangel, Executive Vice President of Commercial Business Development and Preconstruction at Spier Commercial & Industrial of New Braunfels, Texas. “We do flat roof installations, ground installations, carport installations, every kind of installation imaginable and installing on a standing seam roof is always the most cost-effective.”
Spier installed a 165kW grid-tied photovoltaic (PV) distributed generation (DG) rooftop system at McElroy Metal’s Sunnyvale plant. The Seraphim Energy panels were installed on a recent addition to the facility, which was topped with McElroy Metal’s 238T symmetrical standing seam panels. The panels were fastened to the standing seam roof with products from S-5!. The project contained 352 470-watt solar panels, which will produce approximately 261,574 kWh each year. The system is estimated to reduce the facility’s grid energy usage by 46 percent.
“We’re very excited about the addition of solar panels to a fourth manufacturing facility,” says Ken Gieseke, Vice President – Marketing at McElroy Metal. “Once we did the math, calculated the return on the investment, it simply made sense to install the solar panels. McElroy Metal remains dedicated to being an advocate for solar energy.”
Rangel says local and federal incentives paid for approximately 80 percent of the solar installation and that the return on investment will be about five years – for a system that is expected to last 25 years. MR
By Metal Roofing Staff
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