Driving down Lancaster Highway just past the intersection of Route 9, it’s pretty tough to miss the two sprawling warehouses with the faded words ‘Elliot Plant’ next to the front doors. The two identical buildings, named Elliott Plant and Frances Plant, once housed $19 million worth of cotton during the reign of Brazil-based textile manufacturer, Springs Global. Springs Global finally shut down manufacturing operations in South Carolina for good in 2005 with the shift to primarily outsourcing their jobs to South America. However, under new ownership of Merinos Home Furnishings, the 229,000 square foot Elliot Plant will soon be home to something far from cotton - the owners are planning to collect and harvest energy from over 4,000 solar panels which will be installed on the roof of the facility.
“We believe it is the right thing to do, but Duke Energy’s rebate has made it a very easy decision for us” says Michael Bay, owner of Merinos Home Furnishings, “we expect to recover our investment in just over a year.” Last year, Bay also installed NC’s third largest rooftop solar project at their main street property in Mooresville, which houses their famous Neapolitan brick oven pizzeria, Alinos, along with an antique mall and of course, their massive furniture showroom. The roof mounted solar project in Fort Lawn is slated to produce over 1 megawatt of solar power and is expected to cost $1.75 million. The project will be installed by Terawatt Roofing of Mooresville, NC.
“We applaud Duke Energy for the solar opportunity they have created for South Carolina businesses with this rebate program” says Craig Dwyer, CEO of Terawatt Roofing, “and we’re very excited to partner with Merinos to retrofit this plant with clean energy.” Terawatt will also be taking care of the upfront roof repairs to ensure the plant’s roof can last another 20 years since the panels have a life expectancy of 25+ years. Terawatt has plans to use it’s in house team during construction along with local labor wherever possible.
The project is scheduled to begin construction in early fall 2016 targeting completion well before year’s end.
About Merinos
With locations on Lancaster Hwy in Fort Lawn mall space features wood beam ceilings and brick walls, providing “a memorable setting for a wide range of antiques, collectibles and home decor items. Merinos seeks to giving shoppers the opportunity to browse through hundreds of thousands of square feet of furnishings on the same visit, while passing through the benefit of their low overhead to customers through their discounted prices on high quality name brand furniture.
About Terawatt Roofing
Terawatt Roofing is a solar developer and manufacturer of building integrated photovoltaic solar technology. We collaborate with architects, developers, and commercial real estate owners to maximize ROI and aesthetic appeal for every solar application we engineer. We hope that our team's innovative approach to solar development inspires the adoption of more PV technology, and gets us one step closer to a clean energy future.
