Prudential Installs Solar Panels On Three Office Buildings

Prudential Financial, Inc. announced that it has installed solar panels on its office building in Scottsdale, Arizona and in the two buildings of its Roseland, NJ office complex, producing an anticipated 2.3 million kilowatt hours of electricity annually and reducing the company’s greenhouse gas emissions by 3.2 million pounds a year.

“Building these solar arrays underscores our commitment to investing in and leveraging alternative sources of energy to reduce our environmental footprint,” said Prudential Vice Chairman Mark Grier. “They will pay for themselves within a relatively short time frame, which means they make sense financially as well as environmentally. These solar panels are important elements of the comprehensive approach Prudential has taken to reduce our carbon emissions by more than one third over the last ten years.”

Michael Perrette, vice president and head of Corporate Facilities at Prudential, said, “Over the next 10 years, we expect these solar panels to save us approximately $3 million in energy costs and help us further reduce our overall carbon footprint by around 14,300 metric tons. This project complements work we are doing across the company to reduce energy use and increase recycling.” He said the company plans to install solar panels in some of its other office buildings in the future.

The 2,678 panels installed in the Roseland buildings will generate approximately 3 percent of the power use in that office campus, with a peak power output of 500 kilowatt hours. The solar project in Scottsdale is the largest solar photovoltaic system on a commercial office building in Arizona. It involved installing 4,508 panels that generate approximately 30 percent of the building’s power use, with a peak output of 885 kilowatt hours.

Perrette said using the solar panels in the two cities equates to more than 300 cars off the road, more than 160,000 gallons of gasoline not consumed each year and a reduction of almost 1,430 metric tons of carbon emissions.

The solar panel installation project in Scottsdale also included construction of a covered employee parking facility and the addition of several car charging stations. “We hope these charging stations encourage the use of electric cars. In the coming years, we anticipate adding charging stations in other Prudential facilities as demand grows,” Perrette said.