Solar Rises at the CUB

These panels are destined for the CUB’s new flat rooftop as part of Stetson’s own solar mission.

What began as ambition among enterprising students on campus now is only weeks away from becoming real. Shortly after the end of the fall semester, according to Stetson’s Office of Facilities Management, 234 solar panels are scheduled to become operational on the new flat roof of the Carlton Union Building — all powered by Stetson’s new revolving green fund.

The project is intended to produce an estimated annual value of 132.7 MWh, which by comparison would generate approximately 65 percent of the power required annually by the adjacent three-story, 24,000-square-foot Marshall and Vera Lea Rinker Welcome Center.

In May 2017, following expansive groundwork to garner student and administration support, Stetson established the green fund, into which all students pay a $5 fee each semester to fund projects — selected by students — that will save money and decrease the university’s environmental impact. The fund is designed to raise $30,000 annually, and last year students were asked to submit ideas for environmental projects. Nearly 200 suggestions were received, and the clear winner was solar, conceived on the idea of efficiently generating electricity.

A total of 234 solar panels are intended to annually produce an estimated 132.7 MWh of electrical power.

It’s happening.

“We are probably looking at the end of December and into early January [for project completion],” said John Wimer, manager of Energy Conservation and Technical Support at Stetson.

Originally, university officials considered an installation site at a nearby storm-water retention pond between Ohio and Wisconsin avenues. However, the cost of equipment and installation at the pond was deemed “much greater for the same amount of power than at the CUB,” Wimer explained, citing collaboration from the Student Government Association along with Stetson’s Environmental Fellows and the Environmental Working Group, among others.

Jimmy Dean ’20: “The CUB would be the most ideal place for this.”

“The CUB would be the most ideal place for this,” commented Jimmy Dean ’20, one of the students who helped steer the project last spring and has remained the SGA project liaison. “That way, we can bring it directly to the students. It will be right above the students’ heads [on the roof] rather than off campus at a location that’s pretty far away from our center.”

Cost and efficiency play especially important roles, both Wimer and Dean emphasized, particularly since the green fund was established to generate a financial return that can provide dollars for future projects.

Currently throughout campus, solar panels produce exterior lighting for the new parking area that serves the Welcome Center (with panels wrapped around the light pole) and the Hollis Center swimming pool (heated by solar panels on the center’s metal roof).

This latest effort, concluded Dean, an economics and finance major, could be more impactful. “This could be very big. And it’s giving the university the opportunity to really be an anchor in the community for solar energy,” Dean commented.

-Michael Candelaria