Orlando Convention Center Repowers Rooftop with New 2.2-MW Solar PV Array
Key Highlights
- The project was celebrated during the Great Solar Celebration event, highlighting its significance in sustainable large-scale infrastructure.
- Decommissioned panels from the original array are being redistributed to over 120 Florida residents, businesses, and nonprofits.
- Planners and installers say this project exemplifies how smart solar technology can enhance efficiency and sustainability without disrupting busy event schedules.
ORLANDO–One of the most popular business-to-business (B2B) convention facilities in the United States is now adorned by one of Florida’s largest rooftop solar installations.
SolarEdge and installer Advanced Green Technologies have completed work on the 2.2-MW direct-current (DC) solar repowering project atop the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando. The solar array features SolarEdge inverters with power optimizers and now doubles the center’s original photovoltaic generation capacity within the same rooftop footprint.
The 2.2-MW milestone was celebrated today, April 24, during the Great Solar Celebration event hosted by the Orange County Convention Center. The combiner box configuration, which was engineered by SolarEdge to make the most of the 800-foot rooftop span, is considered an industry innovation.
“This project exemplifies how smart solar technology can help large facilities operate more efficiently while advancing meaningful sustainability goals,” said Charles Ellis, VP Sales, CC&I at SolarEdge, in a statement. “We’re proud to support the Orange County Convention Center in demonstrating how large-scale venues can integrate innovative clean energy solutions without disrupting operations.”
The Orange County Convention Center hosts events bringing in more than 2.4 million attendees per year and generating more than $5 billion in economic impact annually.
Advanced Green Technologies handled the rooftop solar installation while Advanced Roofing Inc. completed the main roofing work.
“When we started in the solar business nearly 20 years ago, the original installation was something of a holy grail at that time — a project we all looked up to. To come in all these years later, tear it out, and reinstall something over double its original capacity was a full-circle moment for us,” said Clinton Sockman, Executive Vice President at Advanced Green Technologies. “To now deliver one of the largest rooftop solar projects in Florida, while working around a packed event calendar, is a true milestone for commercial solar in our state.”
Those 5,800 decommissioned rooftop solar panels from the original, 20-year-old array are being redistributed to more than 120 Florida residents, businesses and non-profits as part of the Great Solar Giveaway. The OCCC solar array has been featured as a tour attraction at many of the energy conferences held there.
Among the trade events held in recent years at the Orange County Convention Center include Surf Expo, International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions Expo, DISTRIBUTECH, POWER-GEN International and AEE World Energy Conference & Expo.
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About the Author
Rod Walton, EnergyTech Managing Editor
Managing Editor
For EnergyTech editorial inquiries, please contact Managing Editor Rod Walton at [email protected].
Rod Walton has spent 17 years covering the energy industry as a newspaper and trade journalist. He formerly was energy writer and business editor at the Tulsa World. Later, he spent six years covering the electricity power sector for Pennwell and Clarion Events. He joined Endeavor and EnergyTech in November 2021.
Walton earned his Bachelors degree in journalism from the University of Oklahoma. His career stops include the Moore American, Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise, Wagoner Tribune and Tulsa World.
EnergyTech is focused on the mission critical and large-scale energy users and their sustainability and resiliency goals. These include the commercial and industrial sectors, as well as the military, universities, data centers and microgrids. The C&I sectors together account for close to 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S.
He was named Managing Editor for Microgrid Knowledge and EnergyTech starting July 1, 2023
Many large-scale energy users such as Fortune 500 companies, and mission-critical users such as military bases, universities, healthcare facilities, public safety and data centers, shifting their energy priorities to reach net-zero carbon goals within the coming decades. These include plans for renewable energy power purchase agreements, but also on-site resiliency projects such as microgrids, combined heat and power, rooftop solar, energy storage, digitalization and building efficiency upgrades.