Rooftop Solar Array on NMU's Wellbeing Center - Sustainability Hub for Innovation & Environment

Northern's first-ever rooftop solar array has officially been online for one month. How is it doing?

NMU’s Wellbeing Center received a pretty cool update in July this year: an 81-kilowatt solar array located on its roof! This solar array is a milestone in Northern’s commitment to sustainability and carbon neutrality. The system installation was completed by Peninsula Solar, a Marquette-based, NMU alumni-owned solar contractor. The array consists of 138 bifacial solar panels and is projected to offset approximately 44% of the WellBeing Center’s annual electricity use. This would save the university around $11,700 per year in utility costs.

In its first month online, the WellBeing Solar Array is doing very well! In just August alone, the panels produced enough energy to power the entire WellBeing Center on some days and even fed some of the excess into NMU’s microgrid. 11.094 MWh of energy was produced in August. That amount of energy would be about equal to charging 1,000 smartphones fully. It also saved Northern an estimated $1,553 in energy bills in just one month, from one building!

The solar array on the WellBeing Center is a great example of how integrating more solar and other forms of renewable energy across campus is not only helping our overall carbon emissions but also saving NMU from the high energy costs of powering a university. This project was made possible by the many students who submitted Green Fund proposals for more solar on campus. We hope to see more solar coming to campus in future years!