Share
Friendship Trays, Charlotte's meals-on-wheels program, today celebrated the installation of new rooftop solar panels and high-efficiency lighting - the gift of several local renewable-energy companies.
Tecta-America Carolinas, SBM Solar, Calor Energy Consulting and Southpoint Solutions teamed up to install the 10-kilowatt system and energy-saving lighting.
Dale Carroll, deputy secretary of the N.C. Department of Commerce, was among officials from Raleigh and Mecklenburg County who attended this morning's ribbon-cutting.
The companies used part of a $250,000 N.C. Green Business Fund grant to SBM Solar, which makes photovoltaic panels near Charlotte, to pay for the solar installation.
Tecta-America, a commercial roofing company formerly known as Cyclone Roofing, installed the panels, said Tecta's Tim Munson. Calor Energy served as project developer, raising extra money and tending to other details.
Southpoint Solutions, an energy services company, donated 117 high-efficiency light fixtures. Daetwyler, another local company, provided mounts for the solar panels and Optima Engineering design services.
Friendship Trays is expected to save about $1,400 a year over 20 years. The savings will go toward a future solar hot-water system, further reducing kitchen operation costs for the nonprofit's Distribution Street headquarters.
"These are huge facility improvements that we would never have had the capital to complete on our own," said executive director Lucy Bush Carter. The group, formed in 1976, delivers meals to people who because of age or infirmity can't prepare their own.
