The sun doesn’t just melt ice. Sometimes it makes ice. At an ice-skating rink in New Jersey, solar energy supplements the local power source to make ice year-round and save money for the building owner.

The Aspen Ice at Randolph arena in Randolph, NJ, received the New Jersey Clean Energy 2008 Project of the Year award and the Governor’s Environmental Excellence Award.

In 2006, owner Bob Carragino was faced with a problem: electric energy was too great a cost of doing business. The rink’s annual energy bill was reaching $200,000, and 2008 rates would be going up 15 cents/kWh. Some means of containing costs had to be found. Alternative energy sources, including solar, were obvious solutions to explore, but the limited roof space of 33,750 sq. ft. posed a problem in providing a sizable amount of solar energy.

The successful solution devised by NJ Solar Power LLC, Bayville, NJ, was to affix Sharp 175-W solar modules in an array with 16.4% cell efficiency using more than 3,500 S-5 clamps to virtually cover the roof.

metal-roof-skating-rink

“With our partners, we devised a unique solution that allowed zero penetrations of the roof in the largest standing-seam metal roof solar system east of the Mississippi (River),” said Bill Hoey, managing member of NJ Solar Power.

The work was completed in three months. The job included shoveling snow off the roof to enable the installation of the panels.

Over the 30-yr. life of the system, it is estimated that it will reduce CO2 emissions by 14,927 metric tons, NOx by 55,440 lb., and SO2 by 76,230 lb. The efficiency of the solar electric system will produce enough power to provide the building owner with annual benefits that will cover more than 100% of his electric bill. This benefit is derived from a combination of factors: the electric savings plus the revenue from Solar Renewable Energy Certificates (SREC).

A New Jersey SREC is a tradable certificate that represents all of the clean-energy benefits of electricity generated from a solar-electric system. Each time a solar system generates 1,000 kWh of electricity, an SREC is issued that can be sold or traded separately from the power. (See more about this program at www.njcleanenergy.com). The New Jersey state rebate, federal tax benefits, plus the annual electric bill savings from the local electric utility will allow the rink owner to break even in less than three years.

The solar electric system provides enough power to cover 25% (or $62,500) of the facility’s estimated yearly electric bill of $250,000. “As electricity rates rise, so do our customer’s yearly earnings. With rates inexorably rising, the rink owner’s commitment is both a short- and long-term investment,” Hoey said.

NJ Solar Power, LLC
1 Pelican Drive, Suite 6 | Bayville, NJ  08721
Tel: 877.765.2763 | Fax: 732-269-5462