The Mary S. Biesecker Library implemented a comprehensive, five-year facility update from 2018 to 2022. As part of this process, we partnered with Envinity to install electricity-generating solar canopies that cover our parking lot. The panel array is designed to generate the library’s entire electricity consumption for at least the next 30 years with a surplus that will be sold back to the grid.

By switching to solar, we’ve eliminated the library’s annual electricity costs through self-generated power, saving the library ~$4,000 a year (in 2023 dollars) while also providing us with an efficient, environmentally-friendly electricity source.

How much electricity has the library saved since installing the panels? The embedded data chart below tracks in real time how much electricity we are currently generating (and how much we’ve saved) since switching to solar!