The City of Portland's Municipal Climate Action Plan of 2008 called for the development of municipally owned solar projects in order to create locally generated renewable energy and demonstrate leadership in the area of clean energy. More recently, the City Council committed to reduce Portland's community wide greenhouse gas emission 80% by 2050. Building facilities such as the project below are one step toward our City's renewable energy future.
Riverside Golf Course
We recently installed a solar array at the Riverside Golf Course that generates enough electricity to charge all of the golf carts used at the course. You can follow this link to see how much energy it is generating in real time!
By the Numbers - Riverside Golf Course Solar Array
Ocean Avenue Solar
In December 2018 the City of Portland completed construction of a 1 MW solar array on top of the closed Ocean Avenue Landfill. The array consists of 2816 individual solar panels and covers an area about 4 acres in size. It will generate about 1.2 million kWh of electricity each year - approximately the same amount as Portland City Hall and Merrill Auditorium. This is about 3.5% of the electricity the City uses each year. If you want to see how much energy the array is producing, please visit the dashboard.
Portland International Jetport
A Solar Photovoltaic array covering 29,300 square feet has been implemented on the upper level garage canopy at the Jetport.
The array consists of 1,398 PV panels with total output of 335kW and is expected to generate 575,000kWhr annually, which is more than half the garage and rental car facility consumption - saving approximately $86,000 annually in electricity expense.
The project is believed to be largest roof mounted PV array in Maine.