Iron Mountain, a provider of storage and information management services, announced it has activated a solar energy array at its Freehold, NJ facility that will generate 2.6 million kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity per year.
The array, which sits adjacent to Iron Mountain’s largest records management facility on the east coast, will allow the company to offset 60 percent of the site’s energy consumption today, with that percentage expected to increase as other energy efficiency projects come online for the 857,194 square foot campus, the company said.
The solar array, made up of 6,444 panels capable of producing a total of 1.997 megawatts (MW) of electricity, will supply Iron Mountain through a 20-year, fixed price power purchase agreement with site developer Tech Advisory Group.
Upon activation, it effectively doubles Iron Mountain’s installed solar production from 2 MW to nearly 4 MW, and – together with prior wind farm power purchases in Pennsylvania and Texas – will help the company utilize renewable resources for two-thirds of total North American electricity load by 2018.
“Energy usage across our real estate portfolio comprises half of our global greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) footprint,” said Ty Ondatje, senior vice president of Corporate Responsibility and chief diversity officer, Iron Mountain. “As such, renewable and sustainable energy strategies like solar represent a major opportunity for us to reduce our impact on the environment while enabling us to innovate and operate our business more efficiently.”
“Additionally, power purchase agreements like this and others we have throughout North America help us stabilize our long term costs and enable us to use energy at lower than grid prices,” Ondatje added. For these reasons, we are committed to renewable energy strategies to benefit our business and position Iron Mountain and our customers to meet the growing expectations for sustainable business practices.”
The array was installed by Pro-Tech Energy Solutions of Moorestown, NJ, and sits on neighboring property belonging to The Clayton Companies, one of the largest privately held mining companies in New Jersey.