With all arms of the government digging around for ways to green up their operations, the Dallas VA Medical Center is jumping into the renewable energy pool feet-first, capitalizing on one of its greatest resources: a huge roof.
Says the latest issue of Resource Week, the hospital's wrapped a project to transform the rooftop into its own private Panhandle, soaking up 337 kilowatts of solar through the biggest photovoltaic array in the state. The company behind the project, SunWize, says they expect it'll save the hospital $62,000 a year. It's the company's second rooftop VA hospital project, after a smaller one in Loma Linda, Calif.
And as for how well the array's holding up to the elements, the hospital's energy manager Rick Hart says so far, so good. As Hart told Energy Current, "In the May 2 'microburst' storm that destroyed the Dallas Cowboy
training facility and uprooted trees and light poles here at the
hospital, our rooftop PV system stayed put."