Greenskies bringing solar energy to Connecticut schools

Fox61 | Amanda Raus
April 13, 2018

Project after project, Greenskies Renewable Energy is putting solar panels and arrays on top of buildings.

“We started about ten years ago and have grown the company to this size with building on top of commercial rooftops as well as municipal rooftops,” said Stanley Chin, CEO of Greenskies Renewable Energy.

Greenskies has 75 employees in the New England area with most of them working out of Middletown.

“This is our NOC, network operating center, and this shows a live feed of all of our projects,” said Chin as he showed FOX 61 around the Middletown office.

Greenskies handles projects like the solar array outside of Wesleyan University, the solar panels on the Fairfield landfill, the Milford Walmart and the Torrington Target. Perhaps what Greenskies is most proud of is its work with school districts.

“We can’t do enough in terms of spending money on our children in schools. At the same time, the governments have pressure in terms of how much funding they can provide. When you can actually install a solar system on top of the schools, you can actually save the schools quite a bit of money,” said Chin.

Greenskies has worked with 35 municipal school districts in Connecticut, including a recent project in New Haven where the company is installing panels on eleven schools.

“It reduces our carbon footprint. It provides 2.8 megawatts of electricity to our schools, and it reduces our costs, so that we’re helping our environment, we’re reducing our costs and we’re actually helping our young people to understand how critically important doing that is to save our environment,” said New Haven Mayor Toni Harp.

“It’s a real life lesson in terms of how solar projects can have a positive impact on global warming,” said Chin.

Greenskies hopes to expand its footprint beyond New England. It already has projects as far away as California and in cold environments like Michigan. It wants even more of those projects across the United States, all while keeping its commitment to Middletown.