A PLACE IN THE SUN
Jersey building is first to power itself
As seen in the


November 28, 2007

By Diego Cupolo
STAR-LEDGER STAFF

READINGTON TWP. -- The 41,500-square-foot warehouse sits in an ordinary industrial park on the Branchburg-Readington border, the only clue to its unusual status a small sign reading: “Powered by solar energy.”

Ferreira Construction’s new headquarters uses a combination of renewable energy and high-efficiency products to reach a high plane in energy conservation. It is believed to be the nation’s first commercial building that can produce more electricity than it uses — known as “net zero electric” — according to the U.S. Green Building Council and other environmental groups.

While the building falls short of being completely self-sufficient — lighting and heating itself — the Hunterdon County highway and bridge construction company’s achievement is significant enough to have captured the attention of state energy regulators, conservationists and even Gov. Jon Corzine.
“It’s a fabulous project, and it has set a great example of how practical solar power can be,” said Ed Seliga, vice president of Advanced Solar Products in Hopewell.

Ferreira’s owners proudly point out that their new headquarters and large-scale garage at 31 Tannery Road is much more than an environmental exercise.
“This is not some bio-dome out in Arizona with guys running around in lab coats,” said Nelson Ferreira, president and CEO of Ferreira Construction. “This is a real office building with real employees doing their jobs the same way they would in any old regular building.”
The warehouse, which opened in the spring, is nine times larger than the company’s old headquarters across the street and produces lower energy bills thanks to its 1,276 rooftop solar panels, according to John Grabowski, a company spokesman.

The building makes use of a variety of energy-saving techniques — miles of water hoses in the floors that circulate water heated in an ultra-efficient boiler, and tap water heated by the sun on the roof.
On cloudy days, it takes electricity from the grid just like any other building.
“Believe it or not, the Northeast is a great place to use solar energy because of its mild temperatures. The solar panels don’t work as well in the extreme heat of the desert,” said Joe Grabowski, a vice president at the company and the brother of the spokesman. “Even snow is not a big issue; it actually melts off the panels pretty fast.”

The system is so efficient that when it was brought online in July during a 100-degree heat wave, Ferreira’s employees enjoyed indoor temperatures of 72 degrees while selling surplus power back to the electrical grid.
A building the size of Ferreira’s warehouse has a typical annual electric bill of roughly $94,000, according to the state Board of Public Utilities. The company figures it is saving $75,000 annually off its energy bills, and expects to receive additional money from energy credits purchased by utilities and called Solar Renewable Energy Certificates.

Considering nearly $1 million in state grants the business has already received, its owners believe the technology will pay for itself in five to seven years. (The technology cost about $2 million, increasing the total cost of the building to $8 million.)
“They (The Ferreira Group) are one of our clean energy leaders for 2007, and they did it by using a combination of products that are already on our shelves,” said Mike Winka, whose BPU division provided most of Ferreira’s state grants. “It just goes to show how any local company can reduce its operating costs and stay competitive in the global market.”

Without the state grants, Winka said, a similar-size project would take 15 to 20 years to pay for itself.
In the process of saving money, Ferreira has also reduced greenhouse gas emissions linked to global warming — the difference in energy use amounts to taking 100 cars off the road.
Days after returning from a climate convention in Portugal last month, Corzine toured the warehouse and praised its positive impact on the environment.
“Last year, I announced aggressive emissions reduction targets that aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by the year 2050,” he said in a prepared statement. “But the Ferreira facility actually exceeds that target — in the year 2007.”

The company wanted to push efficiencies even higher, however. Working with engineers, it invented and patented a computerized energy monitoring and control system, which Ferreira now markets as Noveda Technologies Live Data Systems.

“Everyone trying to go green is either installing solar panels or raising their energy efficiency, and no one is thinking of monitoring the performance of their investments,” Joe Grabowski said. “It’s like driving a car without a dashboard.”

The Web-based monitoring system displays, in real time, the exact amount of energy being produced by the solar panels and consumed by the building and any excess being returned to the grid — all of this changing with the push of an elevator button or the passing of an overhead cloud. The system was recently installed in Science Park High School in Newark to help manage individual room temperatures.

“We’re a general contractor; we’re not specialists in green technology. If we can do this, everyone can do this,” Ferreira said. “If every company starts doing their part and starts chipping away at their energy consumption we could be in a much better place when 2030 rolls around.”