How The Frick Environmental Center Will Produce More Energy Than It Uses

SEP 13, 2016

90.5 WESA 

The solar panels shading the parking lot at the new Frick Environmental Center are expected to generate about 150,000 kilowatt hours of energy each year, approximately 10,000 kilowatt hours more than the building is expected to use. The excess will go right back to the electrical grid, according to Noah Shultas with PJ Dick, the construction company that oversaw the project.

“We’re going to be consuming energy at night and the sun’s not out at night, so we can’t be producing everything we need all 24 hours of the day,” he said. “So it’s important that we feed back during the day knowing that we’re going to be drawing throughout the night.”

But the technology that makes the goal of zero net energy possible goes far beyond harnessing the sun’s power. This building is all about efficiency and combines both high tech and low tech solutions... Read the full article