Several South Campus apartments will soon harness the power of the sun to provide heating for the buildings, bringing substantial savings for Syracuse University.

The $789,500 project introduces the first solar panels on campus — installing 240 panels on 20 three-bedroom Skytop apartments, said Brooke Wears, senior project analyst at the Energy Systems and Sustainability Management department. Funding comes from a $450,000 grant from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, specifically for buildings that heated water with electricity. The ESSM and the university’s Auxiliary Services are covering the remaining amounts.

Supplementing fossil fuels with sunrays will provide 50 to 60 percent of the apartments’ hot water while saving 300,000 kilowatt hours, Wears added.

“We’re reducing our dependency on fossil fuels by utilizing the sun’s energy, which is helping us meet our goal of being carbon-neutral by 2040,” Wears said.  “The panels will also a great way of raising awareness of reusable energy.”

Even the installation process is environmentally friendly, with all materials from the process to be recycled, from the panel’s packaging to the concrete.

Although solar panels depend on sunlight, they will function just as well with UV rays, which the sun emits even on cloudy days, Wears said.

Copper pipes will run from the panels mounted on the roof to a water-filled tank inside the apartment building, said Kevin O’Mahony, supervisor of ARA Construction, the company installing the panels.

Diluted propylene glycol, which prevents freezing, will circulate through those pipes and transfer the heat from the panels to a stainless steel coil inside the tank, he said.

This tank, which O’Mahony called a “pre-heating tank,” will be attached to and transfer the now-hot water to the building’s existing tank.

The glycol only flows through the coil, never mixing with the water, he said.

The company should be finished installing the panels the week of July 31, O’Mahony said.

Wears said SU currently doesn’t have plans to install the panels anywhere else on campus.

Published on July 19, 2013 at 12:23 pm

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