The forecast is sunny for the Brooklyn Army Terminal — the city-owned office/industrial complex will soon be partially powered by the Big Apple’s largest solar-energy system.
The city’s Economic Development Corp. today will begin soliciting proposals from companies interested in a $10 million project that includes covering much of the roof at the industrial park’s main building with more than 50,000 square feet of massive solar panels.
The project is a test, city officials say, to see just how ready the Big Apple is to become the Green Apple.
“By demonstrating the feasibility of a solar project of this scale, we believe that we are blazing a trail towards significantly more renewable energy projects throughout the city,” EDC President Seth Pinksy told the Post.
If the solar-energy project can successfully supplement power at the 97-acre terminal in Sunset Park, the Bloomberg administration plans to set up clean-energy technology at many other city-owned sites like the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal.
The project also includes installing building-efficiency technology at two smaller city-owned sites yet to be selected.
Officials estimate the panels would generate more than 600,000 kilowatt hours of electricity a year for BAT– or enough to power about 120 households.
The BAT site offers 3.1 million square feet of rentable office/industrial space, and the solar panels would provide some of its energy.
Currently, the Brooklyn Children’s Museum and Queens Botanical Garden are among the few city-owned buildings that use solar panels. There are also plans in the works for City Hall to go green with solar panels covering 2,100 square feet of its historic roof.
EDC is kicking in $2.65 million of the $10 million in construction costs at the terminal. The rest would be paid with up to $4.5 million in federal grants secured by Con Edison and some federal tax credits.
Aubrey Braz, Con Edison’s vice president of smart grid programs, said the army terminal project “will allow us to monitor solar panels, building energy management systems, and energy storage.”
“The goal is to reduce energy consumption based on grid conditions, especially on the hottest summer days,” he said.
The project will be equipped with monitoring equipment to provide hard data to help other private and public stakeholders make informed investment decisions about similar installations.