BOSSIER CITY, La. — With the need to re-cover the roof on its manufacturing facility in Marshall, Mich., McElroy Metal took advantage of the opportunity to add solar panels to reduce energy usage. The Marshall facility is now the fifth McElroy Metal facility to be topped with solar panels, joining Sunnyvale, Texas, Peachtree, Ga., Adelanto, Calif., and Clinton, Ill.

Spear Commercial & Industrial of New Braunfels, Texas, installed 306 475-watt solar panels from Trina Solar of Fremont, Calif., using clamps from S-5! on the 238T symmetrical standing seam roofing panels from McElroy Metal. The 145-kilowatt photovoltaic system will harness 168,926 kilowatt hours annually, reducing energy usage by 62%. The return on investment is estimated to be 5.7 years, with an annual savings of $21,000.

“The two main things we have to focus on are the mechanical installation and the electrical installation,” says Mark Rangel, executive vice president of commercial business development and preconstruction at Spear. “Obviously, the McElroy Metal people understand the mechanical installation of the roofing, so they supply us with all of the information we need before we start the electrical installation. They know which S-5! clamps we need and provide them for us. The onsite people from McElroy are very responsive and technically savvy. They truly understand the construction aspect of these projects.”

Rangel says the panels will reduce 127 tons of carbon dioxide each year, which is the same as planting 2,946 trees annually for the life of the system.

McElroy Metal’s 238T 24-gauge Galvalume Plus roofing panels were 24 inches wide to accommodate the solar panels, and 60 feet long. The 238T symmetrical standing seam system does not have male and female seams, but is comprised of panels with matching left and right seams. The panels are joined with a mechanically seamed cap. The panels are nondirectional and can be installed left to right, right to left, or even from the center out. In addition to installation benefits, symmetrical panels offer easy individual panel removal and replacement for easy plenum access. Panels can even be re-installed, requiring only the purchase and installation of a new cap.