Global investment firms Blackstone Group and Ivanhoe Cambridge announced Nov. 8 plans to install America’s largest private multi-family residential rooftop solar project worth $10 million across 22 acres of rooftops at Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village.
The 3.8 Megawatt solar energy system will be installed on 56 buildings in the complex. Installation will begin winter of 2017 and is expected to reach completion in 2019, with NYC-based Onyx Renewable Partners as project developer. StuyTown Property Services will oversee the entire project.
Once finished, StuyTown will increase Manhattan’s capacity to generate solar power by three times and generate 6% of the total energy consumed by StuyTown. This is equivalent to removing 11, 972 cars from the road and reducing 62,472 tons of carbon dioxide emissions.
“When we acquired StuyTown in late 2015, we made sure to solicit feedback from the residents. We quickly learned of the strong connection with the community’s green space and the residents’ commitment to the environment,” said Rick Hayduk, CEO of StuyTown Property Services.
StuyTown’s solar project is a response of its residents to the mayor’s Carbon Challenge which aims for an 80% carbon emission reduction in New York by the year 2050. It follows other sustainable initiatives that have kept StuyTown’s on-site greenhouse gas emissions down by 10% since 2007.
To date, StuyTown remains the largest rental apartment complex in the country and holds the title of being the first multi-family building in New York to win an ENERGY STAR certification for its energy management technologies, which included installation of LED lighting, high-efficiency hot water heat exchangers, elevator shaft louvers minimizing heat loss, domestic water flow control valves and a centralized building management system to control all sustainable initiatives.
