UPS has installed a rooftop solar power system on its facility in Lakewood, New Jersey, toprovide a major part of energy needed for the building during the peak operations and to increase
the company’s use of renewable energy.Made up of more than 1,000 solar panels, the 250 kilowatt (kW) system is expected to produce270,000 kW hours of electricity annually, providing nearly 30% of the building’s annual energyneeds and reducing the facility’s dependence on the local electricity grid. The installation is thefirst in a series of investments in solar power planned by UPS. The company is now assessing otherfacilities in terms of their suitability for solar installations.
The Lakewood installation was custom-designed and will be owned and operated by UPS, in contrastto many solar projects that are owned and managed by third parties. This owner-operator approachsaves engineering and construction costs, UPS said.
The 6,500 sqm Lakewood facility uses a system consisting of 1,036 solar panels, or 62,160individual photovoltaic cells, installed on the facility’s roof space. The building harnesses lightfrom the sun during the day, feeding the power into the public energy grid. At night, when thepackage sorting operations take place, UPS consumes energy from the grid. The company tookadvantage of New Jersey’s net metering rules, which offer compensation for generating excess powerduring the day and selling it back to the utility.
Scott Wicker, chief sustainability officer at UPS, said: “The nature of our operation means weuse most of our energy at night, so during the day much of the electricity produced by this systemwill flow back to the grid to support the utilities peak. At night, when we’re sorting thepackages, we will draw from the grid the energy needed to power the facility.”
The New Jersey solar facility and an existing UPS solar facility in Palm Springs, California,together offer significant environmental benefits, with a projected annual reduction of 161 metrictons of CO2 emissions. That equals taking nearly 32 cars off the road annually, consuming 374 fewerbarrels of oil, saving 80,000 litres gallons of petroleum or providing electricity for nearly 20households.
In addition to the solar facilities in California and New Jersey, the facility at the UPSRegional Air Hub at the Cologne-Bonn airport in Germany has its own rooftop solar farm,commissioned and operated by the airport. The farm produces up to 1.2 million kWh ofelectricity.
