Solar panels with a capacity of 235 kilowatts have been added to Dorothy C. Benson Senior Center's roof. Hear more from Energy & Sustainability Manager Jessica Lavender. A typical system size for a residential house is only 6 kilowatts, so we're generating a lot of electricity here. One of our goals is to have solar offset 25% of our electricity use. In order to achieve that goal we're actually installing solar panels on 46 buildings. We started a smaller project in 2021 where we installed solar panels on seven buildings; that's gone really well, and we saved almost $150,000 since then. That went so well that we expanded our contract with that vendor to the 46 additional buildings. The contract is for 20 years, and the solar panels should last for at least 20 years. This project is going to support over 100 new careers in solar energy. Benefits of this solar panel expansion over the next 20 years include lower electricity bills, $2.4M savings, and reduced emissions. 

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