By Billy Ludt, Solar Power World
Solar systems are predominantly installed on rooftops in urban settings, where open land is scarce but multi-level buildings are aplenty. Often, the roof space on these structures isn’t large enough to host solar systems that can cover a building’s entire energy footprint, so they’re supplemented with renewable energy credits (RECs) generated by out-of-city solar systems.
Onion Flats, an architecture firm, wanted to buck that trend and maximize PV output without having to subscribe to RECs on its Front Flats apartment building project in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The solution was installing solar panels on the roof, as well as on the majority of the east-, west- and south-facing walls of the building. In total, the solar system generates 176 kW, which is more than the Front Flats needs — and that’s by design.
Like an onion, Front Flats has layers
Philadelphia design-build architecture firm Onion Flats installed a 176-kW solar system with a rooftop canopy and wraps around the east-, west- and south-facing walls of its Front Flats apartment building. Onion Flats
Being in a state and city not known for solar incentives, the Front Flats project is an anomaly, both in appearance and size.
“I wouldn’t call this a solar city,” said Tim McDonald, CEO of Onion Flats. “The renewable energy credits in Pennsylvania suck, but you go across the bridge to New Jersey and it’s a different world. There’s not a real incentive financially to push it. We push it because we think that’s where we need to be.”
From the second story up, the 28-unit apartment building’s windows are slightly obscured by bifacial solar panels protruding from its exterior walls. Those vertical panels on the east, west and south façades meet the horizontal modules held by canopy supports on the roof. Tenants have rooftop access, where shade gardens are planted, and McDonald said the bifacial module shell still allows natural light into the building and offers additional visual privacy.
Try our daily newsletter, EnviroPolitics, FREE for a full month
