Adelphi University powers sports center roof with new solar panels

Robert Shipley stared up at a gymnasium roof that had failed far too early, with the original manufacturer long out of business and a massive repair bill on the table. Adelphi University, a 75-acre campus in Long Island, New York, needed a brand new roof over its Center for Recreation and Sports. Shipley, the assistant vice president for facilities management, looked at the sudden emergency and saw a chance to do two things at once. "We had to replace the roof, so the question became: How do we make the most of that investment?" Shipley said. He decided to pair the new roof installation with a commercial solar project, bringing in commercial solar advisory firm SolarKal in 2022 to get the wheels turning. Greenskies Clean Energy, a commercial solar developer, stepped in to build, own, and operate the system under a power purchase agreement. Workers installed a 295-kW rooftop solar system made of 546 panels, designed to offset a large chunk of the building's daily electricity usage. Carol Ann Boyle, vice president of campus operations, said the system fits right into the school's long list of green upgrades, following a geothermal heating project in 2003, a 50-kW array on the campus library in 2011, and a 2 MW cogeneration plant in 2016. Neil Sharma, co-founder of SolarKal, watched the years of planning finally pay off on a campus close to his New York roots. Carson Mislick, director of project delivery at Greenskies, noted that getting the system connected took tight teamwork from start to finish. When your building needs major structural work, combining it with a power-generating upgrade might just turn a headache into lower utility bills.