Subway Station in Coney Island Features Integrated Solar Roof

July 27, 2005

Photo of a large, heavily strutted canopy arcing high over a train parked in a subway station.

The massive solar canopy over the Stillwell Station consists of three arcs, one of which is shown here.
Credit: SCHOTT

Brooklyn, New York, now features the largest thin-film, building-integrated solar roof in the United States, a 210-kilowatt subway station roof on Coney Island. RWE SCHOTT Solar provided the 76,000-square-foot arched roof, which consists of 2,730 translucent solar panels that should generate about 250,000 kilowatt-hours of power each year. The panels consist of thin films of amorphous silicon laminated onto glass, and are themselves the largest thin-film solar panels in the world: each panel measures 5 feet by 20 feet. The newly renovated Stillwell Avenue Terminal is the first subway station in the New York City Transit system to use solar energy and was part of the transit system's effort to meet a New York State executive order on green buildings and vehicles. See the press release from SCHOTT North America, Inc. and the New York City Transit Web site.

Large solar power systems have been popping up all over the country in recent weeks. In Chicago, Commonwealth Edison Company (ComEd) is building a high-efficiency, 82-kilowatt system on the roof of the Social Security Administration building. Another Chicago entity, Spire Solar Chicago, wandered a bit out of its normal territory recently: the company installed its laminated solar panels at Denali National Park in Alaska. See the press releases from ComEd and Spire.

Of course, the really large solar power systems continue to be built in California. For instance, Chevron Energy Solution just finished installing 780 kilowatts of solar power at Foothill and De Anza Community Colleges in Los Altos Hills and Cupertino; Kyocera Corporation installed a 235-kilowatt system at its facilities in San Diego; Northern Power Systems announced that it is building a 401.8-kilowatt system at Timberland's distribution center in southern California; and EI Solutions won a contract to install a 594-kilowatt system in the San Francisco Bay Area. See the press releases from Chevron Energy Solutions, Kyocera, Northern Power Systems, and EI Solutions (PDF 32 KB). Download Adobe Reader.