Solar Energy Grows in Brooklyn: How a Progressive Board Got Residents' OK
Feb. 7, 2013 — The view from the roof of Sun Garden Homes, a 70-unit co-op in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, includes unobstructed sights of Green-Wood Cemetery, the Statue of Liberty and the Manhattan skyline. But it is the roof itself that is the most remarkable: It is covered in solar panels. Sun Garden Homes installed the 50-kilowatt photovoltaic system in November, the first step in a long-term plan to reduce the building's energy usage dramatically. The building plans to overhaul its metering system, insulate and repaint its roof, improve boiler controls, and upgrade lighting, windows and toilets. The co-op anticipates the property's energy usage will drop by 30 percent from the solar and metering project alone.
The co-op board's unlikely president, a 35-year-old songwriter raised in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, spearheaded the effort. And he has more ideas for how to turn this working-class community into a model for energy efficiency. "I'm in the rock and roll business," says board president McGowan Southworth, standing in the co-op's interior garden. "But this stuff is way cooler."
When Southworth was nominated for the post as president last April, he warned shareholders that he would push for solar power if elected. Other residents were wary of his ideas; however, no one challenged him. Immediately after his election, he stepped up his efforts to convince fellow shareholders that solar power was a worthwhile investment. After all, energy conservation was a concept he knew well.
Southworth grew up on a 19th-century water-powered sawmill that generated more energy than it used. His father and uncle worked in construction. And now his brother employs the European passivhaus ("passive heating") method in building construction as well.
Working-Class Co-op Works It Out
Board members printed posters
explaining how the building
would finance the project and
where the savings would come.
Southworth figured there must be a way these methods could translate to an urban setting — the residents could certainly use the savings. Sun Garden Homes is a working-class building with many residents on a tight budget. Since 2007, maintenance fees have doubled to $100 per room. Southworth attributed the increase to rising property taxes and large utility bills. In the next five years, the building will likely need a new boiler, an investment that could cost $150,000. But in order to reduce utility costs, the co-op would have to invest heavily upfront in a new technology, and many residents were skeptical.
"They just didn't think it was feasible," says Southworth. So the board president and other enthusiastic residents set in for the hard sell. Sun Garden Homes may not have as much cash on hand as other New York City co-ops, but it has one thing that is hard to come by: an unusually large footprint and ample sunlight.
To explain how the project would work, co-op board members printed up giant posters that explained how the building would finance the project and from where the savings would come. They held a meeting of all the shareholders in the community room, a subterranean hall that once housed another boiler. Ultimately, residents were won over.
"It was everybody's dream, young and old," says Southworth. "They all loved the idea of solar power and didn't like the idea of having to buy energy from a dirty source." Nearly six months later, the posters still hang from the walls of the community room.
To see how the co-op financed this money-saving plan, read part two.
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Photo courtesy Bob Rinklin; click to enlarge