The $700,000 private use building Delta project will be located at the corner of Hamilton Avenue and 9th Street in the Carroll Gardens neighbourhood. It will combine solar and wind energy to generate its own heat, electricity and hot water, which will meet 100% of its energy needs. Post opening in September 2012, Delta will triple as a bed and breakfast, Philly cheesesteak shop and showcase for green building technologies. It is expected to influence carbon-neutral and net-zero energy construction in dense urban environments.
The Delta’s front facade is clad in sun-deflecting red bricks which are made from recycled glass and cement. Seventy solar panels, each the height and length of a small fridge, lay flat against the building’s other two sides. About a dozen and a half more panels hang above windows like awnings, or seem to float above the roof on a metal rack. All these panels together will produce 12 megawatt-hours of electricity a year, about 25% more than the building will use, making it the city’s first net-zero solar building. The extra electricity will be sold to the local fossil-fuel power grid, which the building will be able to draw from on cloudy days and at night.
A separate green building practice called Voltaic Solaire was employed for Delta. The contractors looked for solar equipment makers that could build racks, brackets and awnings to mount panels in ways that capture as much southern exposure as possible. Schletter Inc., a German firm with US facilities in Tucson, supplied the parts for the project with Japan’s Sharp Corp. and South Korea’s Samsung Corp. providing the panels.
The project has been spearheaded by Brooklyn based alternative energy company Voltaic Solaire and has been built in cooperation with Ikea, Samsung, Sharp, Kingston Block and Eemax.
Solar Flare is a weekly award presented by Soluxe Solar, which honours companies, individuals or programs helping advance the solar cause.
The building will be unveiled in September 2012.
