Courtesy Dave Jenike
The Cincinnati Zoo ’s solar canopy , dub the largest urban solar raiment , will lead off reducing the zoo ’s carbon footprint begin in April .
Taking a trip to the Cincinnati Zoo this year is going to be a quite a little coolheaded for visitors . Up to 800 cars at a time will be capable to park in the shade under the Ohio facility ’s new solar canopy . Scheduled for closing in April , the 1.56 megawatt organization with 6,400 solar board is promise the largest in public accessible urban solar raiment in the country . The good part ? The zoo play with local company to source the solar panel .
Approximately 20 per centum of the menagerie ’s energy want will be touch by the solar panels . According to Mark Fisher , senior director of readiness , planning and sustainability at the Cincinnati Zoo , on brilliant , sunny mean solar day , the zoo will be able-bodied to sell back to the power grid and reduce its carbon step by 15 per centum .
Another highlight of this labor is the opportunity for educational outreach .
“ This is a giant - sized regalia in an extremist - urban environs , and it ’s in public approachable , ” Fisher says . With more than 1 million people per year parking under the structure , the zoo has the unique opportunity to teach its visitors about the importance of reducing dependance on fossil fuels in a paw - on way .
“ This part of the country has a general ignorance about solar major power , ” he state . This is the zoological garden ’s opportunity to educate and propel . “ If we can do it , you could , too . ”
cautiously speaking , the solar regalia will save the zoo $ 6 million in DOE over the next 16 twelvemonth . “It ’s a fiscal grand jibe for the zoological garden , ” Fisher say .
The $ 11 million project was n’t casual , though . It took stamen and enterprise by all parties involved . As a nonprofit organization , the Cincinnati Zoo was n’t able-bodied to receive regime taxation credits to dispatch the undertaking .
That ’s where Melink Corporation step in . The local company is the developer , designer , proprietor and operator of the undertaking . To make it work financially , Melink owns the system and will sell the energy back to the menagerie at a rigid pace for the next seven years . After that , the zoo has the selection to purchase the system .
Melink is a supplier of energy - efficiency and renewable - energy solutions for the commercial-grade and institutional building industry . From compost to solar vigor to the on - internet site windmill , the company standard atmosphere reflects sustainability , consort to Coleen Hines , Melink marketing music director . It also promotes didactics on muscularity conservation , energy efficiency and renewable vigour as much as potential . Melink designed the menagerie ’s clean - energy solar array to root on the residential district .
“ The goal is to revitalize the area and encourage people to make on renewable vigor , ” Hines read .
“ If we can propel other facilities , and not just zoos , to take similar actions , this has the potential difference to move the needle , ” Fisher says . “ We go for to help oneself spur undertaking elsewhere and let it take on a life of its own . This is our chance to start the floodgates . ”
The solar panels are made in the United States , and all the multitude ferment to establish the project are local to Cincinnati , avail to create local jobs . In addition , the project will fund 10 scholarships at Cincinnati State Technical and Community College in its green workforce developing program . To be manifest in solar installation in Ohio , you want real - life experience , Fisher enjoin . All encyclopaedism recipients will have that opportunity by bring on the system at the zoo , Hines says .
