Former airport home to powerful solar field

In March, for the first time ever, Noah Kittner was able to take his students on a visit to a solar farm without leaving the UNC-Chapel Hill campus. That’s because the land where Horace Williams Airport once stood is now home to the first large-scale solar facility owned and operated by the University and managed by UNC Energy Services.

The field’s 900 solar panels are expected to produce 500,000 kilowatt-hours of energy every year. Increasing renewable energy on campus is one of 23 strategies outlined in the University’s Climate Action Plan.

“It’s one thing for my students to create solar generation models in class,” said Kittner, an assistant professor in the environmental sciences and engineering department of the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. “But it’s another for them to go out to a real project and think about the design considerations. And for some of my students, it was their first time seeing a solar field in person.”

Students in Kittner’s ENVR/ENEC/PLAN 635: Energy Modeling for the Environment/Public Health gather around panels in the new solar field to ask questions of Trevor Rogers, systems operations engineer. (Submitted/Melanie Elliott)

The energy modeling class was especially interested in learning more about the bifacial panels, which can absorb the sun’s energy on both sides. Though these panels are less common, they can be a beneficial addition to ground-mounted installations. The field also has its own mini weather station that controls the panels.

“The station tells the panels to tilt, and the whole row will tilt together,” said Melanie Elliott, sustainability analyst with Sustainable Carolina. “This feature, along with the bifacial panels, increases energy generation as well as the cost of the project. It’s a great lesson in maximizing energy generation and capacity while operating in a fixed budget.”

Mike Piehler, the University’s chief sustainability officer, first connected with UNC Energy Services on the project in 2020.

“I learned about the airport solar project well before I took on my sustainability roles,” said Piehler. “It is wonderful to have it completed and providing educational, operational and sustainability benefits.”

The Carolina Sustainability Council invited Kittner to one of its meetings earlier this year, which is where he heard an update on the solar field from Tony Millette, executive director of UNC Energy Services.

Substantial energy production 

Including the new solar farm, UNC-Chapel Hill is home to five photovoltaic solar arrays. The North Carolina Botanical Garden, Curtis Media Center, Frank Porter Graham Student Union and the Bell Tower parking deck all have rooftop installations.

Elliott began receiving project updates in 2022, through her role as an ex-officio member of the Renewable Energy Special Projects Committee. Since the panels went live, she’s received data on how much energy the panels are generating.

“The solar energy generated at this site in its first 12 weeks of operation was more than the solar energy generated in an entire year by all other campus solar installations combined,” said Elliott.

UNC Energy Services provided Kittner’s students with data on the solar panel’s energy generation, power output, current and voltage after their trip to the solar field.

“Looking at this data was more impactful for them since they had been to the site,” said Kittner. “This dovetailed nicely with other class projects where we’ve thought about when energy storage might make sense.”

The energy produced at the solar field directly feeds into buildings across the street, along Airport Drive. Although the solar field isn’t their only source of electricity, the data shows that these buildings consume all the energy generated at the field.

“This is one piece of the diversification of our energy portfolio,” said Elliott. “In the future, especially as campus continues to expand, the University will implement new technologies in line with its energy efficiency strategies.”