Six arrays spanning across three sites provide electrical power that offsets over 90% of the electrical cost of three Airport and three tenant accounts. Veregy LLC. oversaw the construction of the solar array that saves nearly $350,000 annually. The three airport accounts are net metered by a combination of roof and ground mounted solar arrays. The other three ground mounted arrays provide a net metering solution for Standard Aero, one of the airport’s tenants and generates over 4,000,000 kWh annually. The airport owns the entire system and provides energy to the tenant through a modification to its lease agreement. The savings are equivalent to greenhouse gas emissions from 8 million vehicle miles driven or 7,500 barrels of oil consumed each year.
This project capitalizes on efforts that the Airport completed with the FAA previously in anticipation of a solar farm that would have provided power directly into the utility grid. Now those FAA approvals are utilized in a Net Metering solution for increased revenue and budgetary savings. This project is the largest airport owned solar array for Net Metering in the state of Illinois providing an anticipated savings of $14.1M over a 30-year timeframe.