Bridging takes the NEXT Step toward sustainability

Take a flyover above Bridging’s Roseville and Bloomington locations and you will notice a new tenant on the roof! This past month, Bridging finished implementing its next step in sustainability: rooftop solar.

The new solar panels were the result of a partnership with iDEAL Energies, a Minneapolis-based solar company.

“We have been so pleased with our partnership with iDEAL,” says Steve Jameson, operations and logistics manager at Bridging. “They offer a very unique, turnkey approach to the solution that we most desired. They have a proven track record in our community and many years of partnership success.”

One important factor in the decision-making process is ownership of the panels themselves. After 10 years, Bridging will own the panels and begin to see 100% of the benefits of them. In the agreement with iDEAL, the energy produced offsets monthly electric bills at both locations.

Saving Money, one sunbeam at a time

“One of Bridging’s core values is stewardship,” says executive director Mark Wilkening. “We felt that as a leader in reuse, we needed to make sure sustainability is holistically embedded into our organization. The opportunities that renewable energy presented was a perfect match to being excellent stewards of our environment; as well as our financial resources.”

And the financial benefits are indeed staggering!

“The electrical offset from the arrays will be about 57% for the Bloomington location and 56% for the Roseville location,” says Donovan LaLonde, lead project manager with Ideal Energies.

This new solar array is one of many around the state as solar heats up in Minnesota. Minnesota regulators doubled the size limit for Xcel Energy’s Solar Rewards programs in 2018, leading to a boom in solar projects in the past few years. That means more utility customers are seeking the opportunity to generate their own energy. This serves to help out in more ways than one—utility consumers become energy creators—they are harnessing the power of the sun while taking some of the strain off of Xcel’s traditional energy grid.

Bridging’s Roseville location began producing energy on April 1, they expect final approval from Xcel to “flip the switch” at the Bloomington location sometime in June. We will continue to monitor the energy production and other renewable energy options as technology advances and creates new possibilities and opportunities.