North Carolina’s already a green state, technically speaking. The state is verdant—literally exploding in bloom in the spring, but North Carolina is also making inroads into the world of sustainability. It’s the southeastern-most state with a renewable energy standard. North Carolina’s capitol, Raleigh, is quickly becoming the southeast’s green capitol as well.

Most recently it announced that it will cover 60 percent of the Raleigh Convention Center’s roof with a 500 kW photovoltaic (PV) array and that it will open its first public electric vehicle charging station on Nov. 23. Raleigh plans to install 30 such stations between now and September 2011. While not in the normal purview of Clean Energy Authority, the electric car charging thing is pretty neat. The PV array at the convention center will add to the center’s current reputation as a green events center. The convention center is the fourth PV installation that Raleigh is supporting, said Assistant City Manager Julian Prosser.

According to Prosser, the city owns a small, 30 kilowatt (kW) facility the city's Brentwood Operations Center, which has yet to be commissioned. Raleigh signed power-purchase agreements (PPA) for a 250 kW PV system installed at the E.M. Johnson Water Treatment Plant, which is now being expanded to 400 kW. It also signed a PPA for power produced by the 1.3 megawatt Neuse River Solar Farm at the Neuse River Wastewater Treatment Plant, he said.

Prosser said the PV arrays also will help the city show the benefits of solar to its residents. The projects have an important economic development aspect.

“Most of the firms we’ve been dealing with are North Carolina firms,” he said.

According to Prosser, the panels for the convention center would come from Georgia-based Suniva, helping to boost the economy throughout the region.

The city now is in final negotiations over terms of the lease with FLS Energy, which won the contract over five other applicants.

“We expect that we will complete the negotiations by the end of the year and start construction by early next year,” he said.

Like agreements for the arrays at the water treatment plants, the convention center PV array is being developed under a power-purchase agreement.

“We will have the option of acquiring each of the installations,” Prosser said. “Our expectation is that the PPA will support any debt related to buying the arrays, and supply us with some extra cash.”

He added that the project will also receive renewable energy credits generated by the PV arrays. The city would be eligible to sell the renewable energy credits to polluting entities to generate some extra income.
 

Image courtesy of Newraleigh.com.