NEW ORLEANS – Entergy New Orleans, the electric and gas utility that serves Orleans Parish, said it has completed the largest commercial rooftop solar project in Louisiana. The 2.4 megawatt solar project is located at trucking and warehousing services company TCI’s facility near the Inner Harbor Navigation Canal.
Approximately 7,000 solar panels cover nearly 240,000 square feet of rooftop space. The systems are designed to feed clean energy directly into the Entergy New Orleans electric distribution grid to the benefit of all customers.
“This project demonstrates our ongoing commitment to delivering clean, reliable and safe energy to New Orleans while simultaneously achieving our customer’s sustainability goals. Projects like this create value for the local community through job creation, and to the environment through carbon reduction,” said David Ellis, president and CEO of Entergy New Orleans. “We continue to look for opportunities to innovate as we work to achieve our overall sustainability objectives for the region.”
“For TCI, installing solar on our warehouse rooftops was an innovative way for us to support Entergy New Orleans’ efforts to invest in the community by harnessing the power of the sun to generate clean energy and reduce our carbon footprint,” said Christian Jensen, representative at Transportation Consultants Inc. “We are proud to have partnered with Entergy New Orleans to complete the largest commercial rooftop solar installation in Louisiana.”
Entergy New Orleans continues its work to identify new sites for the installation of additional panels, focusing on buildings owned by educational institutions, government entities and nonprofit organizations in Orleans Parish.
Entergy New Orleans recently completed the construction of the 100th residential rooftop solar panel installation under its ReNEWable Orleans Residential Rooftop Solar Program, and is evaluating opportunities to expand the program.
Commercial and residential rooftop solar projects further diversify Entergy New Orleans’ generation portfolio. Today, about 50 percent of the energy Entergy New Orleans’ customers use is clean, meaning it comes from sources that don’t emit carbon dioxide, such as hydropower, solar and nuclear energy. The company said its carbon dioxide emission rate is about 50 percent below the national average.
