Creighton University — here comes the sun.
Solar panels are now permanent fixtures in a Creighton parking lot along Cuming Street, on the roof of the campus fitness center and next to the school's theater, part of a $2.6 million project funded mostly by the federal government.
The juice on the solar panels will start to flow Friday when the project is complete.
The panels will produce approximately 110 kilowatts of power on a sunny day, enough energy to power about 30 average houses.
The project will also make the university Nebraska's largest supplier of solar power.
“It makes me very, very proud that Creighton is going to be the place where people come to see how things might be done in Nebraska,” said Michael Cherney, a physics professor who's helping to lead the project.
The solar panels, along with four new wind turbines near the Lied Education Center, will together supply 4 percent of campus electricity. The turbines could be operational by September, university officials said.
The alternative energy technology will save the university $60,000 annually in utility costs.
The solar panels and wind turbines cost $1.4 million, with $1.14 million of the funding provided by the U.S. Department of Energy.
An additional $1.2 million in federal funding is dedicated to developing a new energy technology major at Creighton beginning in the fall of 2011.
The solar components were made by different manufacturers to open up a new educational opportunity on campus, said Lennis Pederson, the university's director of facilities management. He said the system's infrastructure also enables the Omaha Public Power District and the university to test new products, which will be a cornerstone of the school's energy technology major.
“As new technology comes out, it's easy for us to plug and play with new solar panels, to take out the old and put in the new,” Pederson said.
The project will supply electricity for the Criss Health Sciences Building, the Lied Education Center for the Arts and the Kiewit Fitness Center on Creighton's campus.
Mike Jones, OPPD spokesman, said the solar panels will help the utility meet its goal of generating 10 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020.
The utility contributed $295,000 to the project.
Jones said there is demand among OPPD customers for renewable energy.
“We have heard from our customers that they want us to invest more in renewable energies,” he said. “We think this is a direction we need to move in.”
Pederson said Creighton will incur $400,000 in indirect costs from such expenses as maintenance, insurance and administrative fees.
Creighton spokeswoman Cindy Workman said the university wanted to be a part of the renewable energy movement.
“It only makes sense,” she said. “We have a lot of sun and wind.”
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