Going Green
Madrid Engineering Group, Inc. is leading the way in our corner of the world by designing, constructing, and in April, 2008, moving into the first "green" building in Bartow, Florida. We based our design on the rating system known as LEED, which stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. This program, administered by the US Green Building Council, has a point system for each component of the project, ranging from site location, pedestrian and bicycle paths, insulation value, low-e windows, use of green materials in construction, water usage, recycling programs, and much more. Based on the rating schedule, the MEG office is at LEED Silver rating.
Madrid Engineering Group, Inc. recently installed 25kW+ (25,000 watt) system at our location on State Road 60 in Bartow. The system consists of (111) Solar World 235 watt modules and will supply the majority of electricity consumed in the main office building on a monthly basis.
The complete system is split over two sections of roof on two different buildings on the Madrid property. For the larger system on the rear warehouse, (96) modules were used with (4) centralized SMA inverters. On the front warehouse, (15) Solar World modules were placed with each of them having their own Enphase micro inverter. The decision to use micro inverters for the smaller area was done to maximize sunlight exposure per module in that area due to trees creating shade at different times of day. This hybrid system is state-of-the-art, using only the top brand names with the best ROI warranties offered in the solar industry.
Florida-based Solar Source (www.solarsource.net) was selected for the installation based on their experience as the largest and oldest solar contractor in the South Eastern United States. Solar Source Institute is their training arm and provided interns and training opportunities at Polk State College in the name of Madrid Engineering Group, Inc. as part of the project.
The system will eliminate over 40,456 pounds of CO2 every year. This is equivalent to a re-forestation of trees covering an area of 131,195 sf. or driving a vehicle over 48,540 miles, which represents the distance of traveling from Tampa Bay to Los Angeles 19.2 times!
Please check out our GREEN sister companies at the following websites:
www.greenovativedesign.com
www.mygreenovativehome.com
www.greenstarpanels.com