Casino operator MGM Resorts International has installed a 3,000-panel solar canopy at its MGM Springfield property in Massachusetts as part of a wider corporate strategy that last year saw the company join a long line of US businesses turning to renewable energy.
The solar panel array was installed atop of MGM Springfield’s eight-story parking garage earlier this month.
MGM announced earlier this year that it had partnered General Electric’s Massachusetts-based subsidiary GE Solar to jointly materialize the project.
The recently installed canopy will generate more than 1,600 megawatt hours of electricity once it goes online in the coming month. The produced electricity will be enough to power around 10% of the whole property.
MGM Springfield opened doors in August 2018 to become Massachusetts’ first full-blown commercial casino resort. The property occupies a two-million-square-foot site in downtown Springfield.
MGM has said previously that it expects the newly installed solar panel canopy to reduce the Springfield property’s carbon footprint by about 410 metric tons of CO2e per year.
Earlier this year, MGM Springfield became the first casino resort to obtain a LEED platinum certification for its efforts to promote and support environmental sustainability. Under Massachusetts’ casino law of 2011, the state Gaming Commission was required to take into consideration a gaming operator’s efforts to be certified as gold or higher in the LEED program when it reviews its application for a license in the state.
The MGM-Invenergy Solar Project
MGM’s plans to harness more renewable energy and reduce its carbon footprint extend beyond Massachusetts. Last year, the casino operator partnered with Chicago-based developer and operator of sustainable energy solutions Invenergy to develop a 100 megawatt solar array about 25 miles north of Las Vegas.
The facility is expected to become operational by the end of 2020. It will include around 336,000 solar panels across 640 acres of land. It will generate electricity that will be enough to power 27,000 homes for one year.
MGM will purchase all the energy produced by the facility and will use it to partially power its casino resorts on the Strip.
Announcing the project last year, Jim Murren, CEO of the Las Vegas-headquartered hotel and casino operator, said that “protecting our planet is a business imperative for MGM Resorts and it is our responsibility to find innovative ways where we can use clean energy to power our resorts.”
MGM and a long list of other US businesses are turning to renewable energy as the climate change debate is ranging on. The US solar industry installed 10.6 gigawatts of solar photovoltaic capacity in 2018, according to stats from Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables and the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA).
SEIA President and CEO Abby Hopper said that “the total amount of solar installed in America is on track to more than double in the next five years, proving solar’s resiliency and its economic strength” and that the next decade is expected to be “one of significant growth.”
Source: MGM Springfield installs solar panels to help power casino, The Washington Times
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