Over 30 years ago, the Knox Central Building housed a three story Sears department store.
As of 10 a.m. Monday morning, the local government facility is now home to a slew of solar panels designed to cut utilities across the city in half.
Ameresco, a sustainable energy company with a local presence, showcased the first official power “switch” with partners Knox County Mayor Tim Burchett and Knox County Schools Superintendent Jim McIntyre on a model panel before members of the press and a small gathering of Knoxville officials.
When Burchett announced the coming panel installations at the official press conference, he commented that environmental technology offered in an urban area such as Knoxville “just makes good business sense as technology continues to improve.”
As the latest project of the city’s 2014 solar initiative, Burchett highlighted that the installation will reduce utility bills and produce $14 million in “positive cash flow” over the next 30 years.
Regional Ameresco vice president Jeff Metcalf, who spoke at the panels’ debut, said the $12.45 million project aims to displace electric energy used by city facilities, like the Central Avenue complex, and reduce the carbon emissions created by traditional units that power such structures.
The difference in the alternative energy switch, he said, is calculated to reduce the emissions by approximately 1,000 cars worth of carbon waste.
“When I talk about the equivalent of 1,000 cars being off the streets, what we’re doing is calculating what the emissions are locally from the power plants that generate power here,” Metcalf said. “We’ve calculated that, and by putting an emission-free system, we can predict how many CO2 emissions we have and how many these (panels) can take off the street.”
Though the panels are only the first installation out of 14 scheduled sites, McIntyre emphasized an educational component within the city collaboration with local schools as primary reason for his excitement.
“This initiate really has economic, environmental and educational benefits, and one of the things I’m really excited about is how our students can understand what renewable energy really looks like,” he said.
Eleven of the 14 sites expected to receive solar panels by January 2016 are local schools such as Bearden Middle School, Central High School, Hardin Valley Academy, Karns High School, L&N STEM Academy and South Doyle Middle School.
L&N STEM Academy, specifically, will receive two solar panels that students can study as part of their education on environmental and energy conservation issues in a localized platform.
“There will be a kiosk where kids can be a part of monitoring energy conservation and use, and it’s really a wonderful opportunity for our students and our teachers to use that as an educational tool,” McIntyre said.
Burchett said the city’s ability to implement these panels comes from a plethora of rooves and open spaces in city buildings, allowing such a project to “pay for itself” instead of relying solely on the city budget for funding.
As one of the project’s head officials, Burchett also commented that his visit to a smaller Tennessee elementary school with solar panels inspired the task ultimately undertaken by Ameresco and McIntyre as an educational resource.
“It turns these kids on to science and they ask a lot of questions and it’s an ongoing scientific experiment for them,” Burchett said. “That’s really one of the aspects that drives this whole thing.”
