Nashville Metropolitan Housing and Development Agency Uses Federal Funding to Improve Energy Performance

MDHA will be largest generator of energy in Tennessee

Mayor Karl Dean, Phil Ryan, Executive Director of the Metropolitan Development and Housing Agency (http://www.nashville-mdha.org) (MDHA) and HUD-Nashville Field Office Director Bill Dirl with Nashville Public and Indian Housing Center Director, Charlie Barnett, participated in the opening of the Parthenon Towers Solar Panels Green Energy Project last Friday. The project was developed with American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (http://www.recovery.gov) funding of over $5.9 million and HUD Energy Performance contract funding of over $4.6 million.

Parthenon Towers, part of the MDHA public housing portfolio, is a high-rise elderly and disabled development of 295 efficiency and one-bedroom units located on 28th Avenue in downtown Nashville.

Metro's Development and Housing Agency unveiled the new solar array on top of the Parthenon Towers overlooking Centennial Park on Friday, April 23, 2010. The energy generated will be routed into the Nashville Electric Service power grid. Similar solar setups are being installed at the MDHA high-rise in Madison and at Edgefield Manor. The project is Nashville Electric Service's largest solar energy generator in Davidson County.

The solar installation consists of 280 photo-voltaic panels. Altogether, the panels cover almost 5,000 square feet of the building's roof. The panels are expected to produce more than 76,000 kWh of energy per year. The solar arrays at Parthenon and Madison, plus a smaller installation at Edgefield Manor in East Nashville, will make MDHA the largest generator of solar power in the state of Tennessee and are estimated to produce enough energy to power a small neighborhood of houses for an entire year.

Generating and selling solar power is only a small piece of a much larger energy performance project on which MDHA has partnered with Siemens Industry, Inc. Also under way is the installation of high-efficiency variant refrigerant volume (VRV) heat pumps, tankless water heaters, lighting upgrades, and water-conserving plumbing upgrades. The overall project will essentially pay for itself through energy savings which Siemens guarantees. When all work is complete, MDHA will be saving approximately $1.65 million per year in avoided energy costs as a result of lower consumption.

"This is a very exciting project for our city because it reaffirms our commitment to the environment and to making Nashville the greenest city in the Southeast," said Mayor Karl Dean. "My goal is for Nashville to be a national leader in the area of sustainability, and with innovative thinking from every sector - business, government, individual and non-profit - we will move closer toward that goal."

"It's also important to note that the solar panels we're utilizing were made at Sharp Corporation's Memphis plant, which means jobs for Tennesseans," said Phil Ryan, Executive Director of MDHA.

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