New field of green at Longwood: A solar farm

Longwood Gardens is already a pretty green place.

It is about to get even greener.

The famed garden is getting ready to turn on 6,682 solar panels in what will be one of the largest fields of its kind in the region.

When completed in June, the panels - on nine acres across Route 1 from the main entrance - are to supply about 18 percent of Longwood's energy.

The $7 million solar field, which has been in the works for more than three years, is aimed at cutting the garden's energy bill by $64,000 annually and promoting alternative-energy usage, director Paul Redman said.

"Not only is it good for business but it's good for our community, and it's fulfilling our [environmental] mission," he said.

Longwood provided the land, but a solar company will own and operate the project, selling all the electricity back to Longwood.

This being Longwood, Redman said the site will also serve as a testing ground for how large fields of solar panels can be landscaped.

Most solar projects of this scale are erected on flat tracts, covered by asphalt or gravel. This one is on hillsides. And instead of asphalt, "a beautiful meadow" of different mixtures of grasses and flowers will be planted after the last yellow Caterpillar tractor departs.

The plantings are intended to help show what grows best around tilted solar panels. They will need to be low-growing and low-maintenance. The hope is that the result will foster "a new landscape aesthetic for solar fields," Redman said.

Though spokeswoman Patricia Evans said small groups might be taken over to see the panels, the only sign of the project inside will be an educational display in the Idea Garden, where an 18-foot-tall flower will be constructed, with petals made of solar panels.

While the project's aesthetic is Longwood's focus, its power output is attracting notice among energy experts.

"It is a big deal, and it has some interesting features," said Deborah Fries, spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.

She said most of the panels for the project were being made in Delaware - a rarity, since most solar-panel production is overseas.

Kristin Sullivan, a Philadelphia official who oversees solar projects in the city, said she was impressed by Longwood's predicted output of 1.5 megawatts a year - enough to power more than 130 homes. The largest solar project under development in Philadelphia, at the Navy Yard, will produce 1.3 megawatts.

And it will beat out the Ingram's Mill Water Treatment Plant in East Bradford Township, whose solar installation produces 1.1 megawatts.

Sullivan added that the project was being built when financing solar projects in Pennsylvania could be difficult. The state mandates that utilities draw a certain amount of their energy from solar. Since most are meeting that requirement, there's not much demand for additional solar capacity, and companies that want to launch such projects find it harder to get the solar-tax credits to help financing.

"Nobody really needs to buy" more solar power right now, Sullivan said.

Once Longwood had the outlines for the project, it turned to EcoG L.L.C. of Bellevue, Wash., to own and operate the arrays. The company provided the technical and engineering expertise the garden lacked.

In addition to the property, Longwood provided a $1.3 million state grant from federal stimulus money to help fund construction. EcoG covered the rest with a loan of at least $1 million from Longwood and money from other sources.

Redman said he hoped the arrangement would serve as "a road map for other nonprofits" looking to get in on the renewable energy game.

If all goes according to plan, this is just the first phase of Longwood's solar-energy plans.

The garden plans to double solar generation to 3 megawatts by 2018 - enough to take it off the grid completely during the summer's sunniest days.

To do that, Longwood is looking at constructing an undetermined number of solar panels above its parking lot and at its outlying buildings. That phase is scheduled for completion in 2018.