By Joanne Degnan, Staff Writer
ROBBINSVILLE — It was a sultry 135 degrees on the sun-baked roof of the Grainger Distribution Center warehouse, where wilting visitors came to see the 3,900 solar panels that have made Rob Reynolds so hot on green energy.
”This is how we’ve taken a significant environmental step to reduce our energy use,” said Mr. Reynolds, Grainger’s NJ distribution center director, as he stood Monday before a sea of flat photovoltaic panels tilted 10 degrees toward the sun.
The 1.2-megawatt system producing power silently on the roof since June is supplying 40 percent of the 434,000-square-foot warehouse facility’s electrical load, Mr. Reynolds says. Grainger expects to save $200,000 a year in energy costs, making it good for the environment and the bottom line, officials said.
Although Grainger, a global industrial and maintenance supplier, has numerous LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified buildings in the United States, the distribution center in Robbinsville’s Northeast Business Park marks the company’s “first foray into solar,” Mr. Reynolds said.
So to celebrate what Grainger Senior Vice President D.G. Macpherson called the corporation’s “green milestone,” community and business leaders, customers and solar industry experts were invited to a forum at the company’s Robbinsville distribution center Monday to discuss solar and sustainable energy practices. The adventurous were able to climb the narrow stairs to the roof afterward for a firsthand look at the photovoltaic solar system in operation.
”There’s no pollution, there’s no moving parts, there’s nothing to hear,” warned Felix Aguayo, strategic accounts director for SunPower Corp., which manufactured the high-efficiency solar panels that were installed at Grainger.
”You’re going to look at it on the roof and be bored to tears,” he joked.
The only other major piece of equipment is the inverter, which is located downstairs inside the warehouse, Mr. Aguayo said. The inverter is what converts the direct current power produced by solar array into the alternating current electrical current consumed inside the building.
Jason Kliwinski, associate director of sustainable design at the Spiezle architectural firm and co-founder of the NJ chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council, said businesses’ attitudes about green energy are changing.
Mr. Kliwinski said his conversations with clients about green buildings — facilities whose design reduces the need for fossil fuels to heat, cool, power and light them — have evolved from “Why should I do it?” to “Why shouldn’t I do it?”
”It’s just becoming a smart way to build, and solar is an integral part of that,” Mr. Kliwinski said. He added that LEED-certified buildings can be built at the same price or less than a conventional building without LEED certification, which is a ranking system developed by the U.S. Green Building Council.
”Installing solar panels on your buildings, which reduces your carbon emissions, and doing energy-efficiency upgrades like compact fluorescents, lighting controls … all of those things are going to reduce your carbon (emissions) and reduce your liability from a regulatory standpoint,” Mr. Kliwinski said.
Mr. Aguayo, of SunPower, said the business incentives offered by the state of New Jersey for going solar are the best in the nation.
”The economic environment for doing solar in this state hasn’t been better than any other time,” he said.
New Jersey has established “transparent interconnection rules” that allow easy access to the power grid, he said. It also has created a market for solar power with the solar renewable energy credits program that allows the owners of solar energy systems to earn money for every kilowatt hour of energy their registered system produces. In addition, businesses that go solar can receive federal grants for up to 30 percent of the project’s cost through the end of the year, Mr. Aguayo said. The grant program will transition to an investment tax credit program in 2011, he said.
Eric Hogberg, Grainger’s energy manager, and other company executives who were asked, declined to reveal how much the company spent on its rooftop solar energy system. Mr. Hogberg would only say that when the government incentives, reduced energy costs and SREC profits are taken into account, Grainger would earn back its solar investment within four years.
The solar panels are guaranteed by the manufacturer to continue operating for 25 years.
Some business owners in the audience asked Grainger executives why they put solar panels on only half of their warehouse’s roof.
”Since this was Grainger first photovoltaic solar project, we wanted to just kind of dip our toes in it a little bit,” Mr. Hogberg said. “We wanted to get a system up on the roof, get it fully running, get used to participating in the solar renewable energy credit market. But now that we’ve gone through this process and completed our first project, we’re definitely looking to move forward and put more panels on the roof.”

