Powered up: OU’s president house is first in state to be fully solar powered

Max Bryan, mbryan@detroitnews.com

In its quest to steer Michigan’s greater training group in renewable power, Oakland College has achieved a primary within the state – and probably the nation.

Three rows of photo voltaic panels with the OU emblem on the entrance now sit exterior Sundown Terrace, the campus house of President Ora Pescovitz. The panels have been put in late final yr and activated this yr. They generate sufficient energy to make the home the primary constructing on campus to run solely on photo voltaic power. College officers consider that is the primary college president’s house in Michigan, and probably the nation, to run solely on photo voltaic power

The set up of the panels is a part of Oakland College’s efforts to attain a carbon-neutral footprint by 2050, stated Rafi Bayrakdarian, the college’s director of expertise.

“We wish to scale back our carbon footprint as rapidly as potential, and we’re being very aggressive about that. And I assumed it might be vital for me to function a very good function mannequin and instance,” Pescovitz stated. “I reside right here and this constructing is historic.”

In-built 1953, Sundown Terrace is the 11,400-square-foot former Rochester retirement house of auto heiress Matilda Dodge Wilson and her second husband Alfred. After OU was based in 1957, it will definitely turned the house of the college president.

A sequence of floor-to-ceiling home windows in the lounge of Sundown Terrace now supply a view of the photo voltaic panels.

“What’s nice about this concept is that we’re merging the outdated — it is one of many oldest buildings on our campus — and one thing new,” Pescovitz stated. “The idea that we make one thing fully sustainable is one thing I’m very pleased with.”

The home isn’t the primary constructing on campus with photo voltaic panels. Pescovitz stated the college well being constructing additionally has them on the roof. However it’s the first to run solely on photo voltaic power, with solely an on-site generator as backup.

Bayrakdarian, the engineering director, stated Sundown Terrace made sense to be the primary campus constructing to run solely on photo voltaic power as a result of its HVAC programs have been transformed from pure fuel to electrical warmth pumps three years in the past.

“With this constructing, all of the steps have been already carried out, so all we wanted was the ultimate push,” he stated.

The college started pursuing photo voltaic power on Sundown Terrace in January 2024, when it solicited proposals for the work. The mission was designed and put in within the second half of 2024 and related to the grid in January, based on Bayrakdarian.

The mission value greater than $300,000, which is anticipated to be diminished to $220,000 after a $95,000 federal power funding tax credit score from the Inflation Discount Act is handed in 2022.

It can save the college an estimated $16,000 yearly, the college says.

The photo voltaic panels generate 112,000 kilowatt hours of electrical energy yearly, sufficient to satisfy all of the power wants of the home. In keeping with the college, the panels save about 80 tons of carbon dioxide yearly.

Pescovitz, who has been OU president since 2017, stated she did not even discover when her home went photo voltaic powered.

“I really could not consider the home was totally powered,” she stated.

Pescovitz factors out that the photo voltaic panels additionally present power for different inexperienced initiatives inside Sundown Terrace: her accomplice can cost his electrical automobile by means of the home with none issues.

Along with the advantages of inexperienced power, Pescovitz stated she needed her college students to know that OU takes defending the atmosphere significantly. She stated college students “place lots of significance” on the atmosphere, and the Sundown Terrace mission communicates to them the college’s purpose of eliminating its carbon footprint.

Pescovitz added that Sundown Terrace is “not the final” constructing on campus that will probably be totally photo voltaic powered.

“Our purpose is to stay that type of college,” she says.

To create a carbon-neutral footprint, college officers say they’re at the moment within the “optimization part,” which is able to run till 2030. It consists of putting in a combustion air cooling system to extend turbine output through the summer time months and changing outdated sizzling water turbines with two high-efficiency items. The college plans to put in 5,000 kilowatts of photo voltaic power between 2030 and 2040 and one other 5,000 kilowatts between 2040 and 2050.

“Our purpose is for each mission – massive or small – to contribute to a cleaner, extra environment friendly campus,” Bayrakdarian stated in a college press launch. “Sundown Terrace is only one extra instance of how we translate our sustainability objectives into tangible outcomes.