Now there’s another way to read Tennessee Connections online! Using ActiveMagazine technology, you can flip through the actual pages of the magazine on your computer screen.
Architecture Firm Takes Its Own Green Advice
Street Dixon Rick Architecture in Nashville installed a solar panel system in May 2008.
Photo Courtesy of Street Dixon Rick Architecture
A Nashville architecture
firm with a reputation for promoting green building design has switched to solar to power its offices.
Street Dixon Rick Architecture installed the large-scale solar panel system on the rooftop of its two-story office building in May 2008. Since then, the firm estimates it has avoided emitting 63,721 pounds of greenhouse gases into the skies over Nashville and saved more than 25 percent on its monthly electric bills.
“Architects are advising clients to ‘think green,’ and we wanted to lead the way,” says Steve Rick, principal of the firm.
But even for a firm whose architects are all trained in green building design, going solar wasn’t an easy or obvious step.
It took a “perfect storm” – as Rick describes it – to nudge the firm into installing 72 costly photovoltaic panels on its roof.
Then rising energy prices, the availability of state and federal grants, and a new program from Nashville Electric Service to pay back commercial customers for
the energy they generate convinced the firm’s leaders that the time was right for a green investment.
The firm became the first
to apply for a Tennessee Small Business Energy Loan Program, which provides low- or no-interest loans of up to $300,000 to qualified businesses to upgrade their energy efficiency. It also became the first company to take part in the Nashville Electric Service Generation Partners Program. The partnership allows both commercial and residential customers generating solar or
wind power to “sell” it back to
the Tennessee Valley Authority for 15 cents per kilowatt – meaning that electricity customers don’t just get a break for the limited energy they purchase from the power company. They also get a credit
on their bills for every kilowatt
of power they generate.
READ MORE ONLINE:
Considering going solar? Steve Rick, principal of Street Dixon Rick Architecture, offers some tips.
Story by Anita Wadhwani
