Greenskies to Build Solar Arrays on Southington Schools

Press Release | Middletown, CT
April 19, 2016

Greenskies Renewable Energy, one of the five top commercial solar developers in the nation, said it has signed an agreement to design and build rooftop solar arrays on Southington’s two middle schools.

The town’s two middle schools are the Joseph A. DePaolo Middle School on Pleasant Street and the John F. Kennedy Middle School on South Main Street in the Plantsville section of town.

The two solar installations will generate a combined total of about 650 kilowatts of electric energy that will be used to offset a major portion of each school’s electricity usage and cost, said James Desantos, Greenskies’ vice president of business development and government relations.

The systems will be capable of producing about 386,500 kilowatt hours, or kWh, per year, Desantos said, or enough electric energy to power more than 50 New England households for a full year.

The two arrays will save the community “a significant amount of taxpayer dollars” over the 20-year life of the Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) between the town and the company, Desantos said.

Under the terms of the PPA, Greenskies will design, develop, construct, own and maintain the two solar installations for the next 20 years at no cost to the town. The company will then sell the power it produces at the sites back to the school system at a fixed and significantly discounted rate.

The two solar arrays will be made up of a combined total of 1,026 photovoltaic solar panels, Desantos said. Construction on the projects is expected to begin by early summer and be completed by the beginning of the new school year in September.

“This is a great example of what can be accomplished with partnerships between the Board of Education, the town and Greenskies,” said Garry Brumback, Southington’s town manager.

Added Mike Riccio, chairman of the Southington Town Council: “This takes us another step to becoming the greenest town in Connecticut.”

This is the second straight year Greenskies has signed a contract to build solar arrays on the rooftops of public schools in Southington. Last spring, the company designed and built a 143-kilowatt roof-mounted solar array at Plantsville Elementary School, a 324-kilowatt ground-mounted system at the South End Elementary School and a 324-kilowatt ground-mounted project at the Hatton Elementary School. All three systems have been in operation since late last summer.

Greenskies is an eight-year-old company that designs, builds and maintains solar photovoltaic systems for commercial and industrial clients, municipalities and government agencies, educational institutions and utilities throughout the United States. Solar installations designed and built by Greenskies have now produced more than 105 million kilowatt hours of clean electric power.