The National Institute of Standards and Technology inaugurated a large solar energy array during the agency’s celebration of Earth Day. The array consists of 15,000 panels and is built to provide over 8 million killowatt-hours of energy in the agency’s facility in Gaithersburg, Md., NIST said Monday.
The agency noted that the array will mitigate the release of approximately 6,200 metric tons of annual carbon emissions based from a formula created by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. In addition, the array will potentially help NIST save $3.5 million in expenses for the next two decades.
The infrastructure was constructed by Exelon’s Constellation company under a contract award from the Department of Energy. The firm will also maintain and replace the array’s components for 20 years as part of contract work.