Originally published by enerG Magazine; Written by Diane Mettler.
Freedom Solar Power has completed the largest commercial solar installation in the greater Houston area in partnership with Stainless Structurals, that is now replacing the equivalent of thousands of barrels of oil per year.
The new Stainless Structurals solar system sits less than a hundred miles away from Spindletop,
Texas — one of the most transformative oil fields that marked the start of the 1901 Texas oil boom. Over one hundred years later, this solar installation, which will replace the equivalent of 3,900 barrels of oil per year with electricity from clean renewable sources, ushers in a new revolutionary moment for energy.
The Stainless Structural solar rooftop installation is the largest commercial installation in the greater Houston area and is a partnership between Austin based Freedom Solar Power and Stainless Structurals, a premier supplier specializing in the design, production, and distribution of stainless steel solutions. The installation utilizes over 4,000 solar panels across 118,000 square feet of roof and will offset Stainless Structurals’ energy usage by an estimated 78 percent, equating to approximately $4.8 million in estimated savings over the next 25 years.
Kyle Frazier, executive vice president, commercial and industrial sales, for Freedom Solar Power, is excited about the project. “This is our backyard. We’ve got physical offices throughout Texas — Houston, Dallas and San Antonio, as well as Austin. The commercial side of our business is licensed in roughly 40 states and growing so we do projects throughout the country, but we love doing projects in our backyard, and Houston is very much our backyard.”
Staying Cool
Stainless Structurals was initially looking for a thermal barrier solution for their rooftop to help reduce the temperatures on the floor of their manufacturing facility, which were reaching upwards of 100 degrees during the Texas summer.
“Stainless Structurals reached out a couple of years ago,” says Frazier. “They were just looking for information, and that started a process for them internally evaluating the benefit of solar, seeing how that accomplishes their internal corporate sustainability goals, and then finding a way to fund the project, which is a pretty typical process. They came back, after they had run that process and said, ‘Okay, we’re ready to get down to business’.”
During the company’s research, Stainless Structurals learned that solar panels would reduce the internal temperature of the facility by as much as 38 percent, which would significantly cut its air conditioning costs, improve indoor comfort and protect building materials. Using solar to help with the cooling would also allow them to utilize tax incentives and rebates such as the Investment Tax Credit (ITC), the 10 percent Energy Community incentive, the 10 percent Low Income Community incentive, and the Federal MACRS Bonus Depreciation, all of which would help cover over 50 percent of the costs of going solar. Solar turned out to be the perfect fit for their corporate sustainability goals.
“Temperature was a big motivator from Stainless Structurals,” says Frazier. “We were able to cut the internal temperature. Because the panels sit off the roof, they’ve got four to six inches of air in between them and the roof. This creates that air gap where heat vectors off. You are pulling the heat off the building, and there will be savings from that. It will be really interesting to see how much. But there will be a benefit to it.”
In addition to staying cooler, however, Stainless Structurals will also benefit from decreased energy costs, with most of the energy created being consumed by Stainless with the rest being pushed back onto the grid.
Easy Does It
Despite its size, Frazier says this was one of the smoother projects that his company has worked on, partly due to its location. It was a six-week install, with most of it taking place in four weeks.
“A lot of the time was setting up the project. Engineering, design, permitting, procurement, getting the safety plan in place and all that,” says Frazier. “The actual work went extremely fast.”
The low pitch on the roof made the logistics and safety planning much simpler. The panels were installed little by little to distribute the load and avoid too much weight at one point on the roof. The panels were lifted to the roof by a lift, offloaded and then distributed from there by the crew members. And with the low pitch, crews were able to move around easily.
One challenge was the number of panels to be stored, which created some navigating issues for Stainless Structurals for a time. But the bigger challenge was the client’s deadline.
“There was a timeline that Stainless Structurals wanted us to meet, and so we threw a lot of people at it,” says Frazier. “During the installation, there were anywhere from four to 21 people on site. And we combined some of our installation crews to make this project happen more quickly.”
Putting the Pieces Together
The solar panels used for this project were Qcells. “A couple of years ago we switched to Qcell, which manufactures a bifacial panel,” says Frazier. “With a bifacial panel, there’s no back sheet. You’ve got two sheets of glass instead of just one. It’s a technology that is designed to increase the efficiency of the panel and give you a little bit more production. It’s a tier one panel and it’s what we use on 90 percent of the projects that we do.”
As for inverters, it was SolarEdge all the way. “We use best-in-class solar inverters,” says Frazier. “We’ve always been a premium shop, so when it comes to equipment, it’s not the flavor of the month. We pick something and we standardize around it, and we stick with it. So currently that’s SolarEdge for inverters and Qcell modules for the solar panels.”
Because the installation was on a metal roof, the racking system was metal brackets produced by S-5!
Texas Sized
This project was on the larger end for Freedom Solar Power and has a special significance for Frazier. “I’m Texas born and raised, and to do a project that’s this size, two megawatts, so close to Spindletop, where the energy boom began in Texas in 1901, and to think about the amount of energy that this building will produce over its lifetime, is amazing.”
He adds, “It’s just cool to see a project that large, within an hour of ground zero for energy and to think about the transition going forward. It’s not just solar. It’s wind It’s batteries. It’s figuring out how Texas participates in what the next energy boom looks like. Texas is a big participant being the largest wind producer in the country and quickly becoming the largest utility scale solar producer. It’s neat to see this happening and being driven by finding a better way to produce and deliver energy.”
Looking at Freedom Solar in that energy journey, Frazier sees the important role that they play.
“I would say we are the largest company that is doing what we’re doing in the country. And we specialize really in helping companies that have a pretty diverse portfolio of properties throughout the country. These companies want to evaluate things like ‘If we have 20 locations and we want to do [solar] five or three, how do we know which ones to go do first? Where do we start?’ And so a lot of what we do is help them evaluate a solar strategy, make sure it accomplishes the goals that they have, and then find the best economics really for them to make the project work internally.”
Big Future
Frazier has been seeing some interesting trends. “One thing I’ve noticed as I’ve talked to other companies in manufacturing is that there’s a big push from the customers of these facilities driving some of the corporate change. An interesting thing is happening at the finished goods level that’s rolling through the value chain that is causing people to make decisions like this that keep them competitive.”
Frazier says that for most of our clients though, their motivation is economics in various forms. “Does solar move the needle for them financially? And that could just be a simple payback or ROI, but it also could be employee retention, because their employees are saying ‘Hey, we consume lots of energy. We want to be more responsible. We want to see y’all do something about that.’ Or it could be corporate or customer loyalty.’
As for the election coming up, Frazier takes it with stride. “There’s always uncertainty in an election year and what legislation will change and how that impacts not just subsidies and incentives, but also policy as it relates to net metering. And so that’s been true though since the industry was born. We call it the solar coaster. We’ve been on it and we’ll just kind of adapt as we go.”
Frazier and his team are excited about the part they are playing now in energy production and going forward. “It’s crazy to think about it. You drive around and just look at the power lines that run like spaghetti all over the city. It’s just to bring power in from way outside where it’s produced to the urban centers where it’s consumed. Moving electrons is most of what we spend our power bill on. It’s not the energy. The energy is relatively cheap. It’s moving it that’s expensive. I’m most excited about a world where our homes and our businesses are fully independent of the grid, and everything is there to do that. Not large-scale manufacturing, but what most people do. Our building here, the home that I live in, could be fully independent. I’m most excited about the future of what that looks like.”