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Jim Henderson's devotion to solar power is heating up.
The founder and president of upscale Naples-based mover William C. Huff Cos., Henderson recently completed a 10,000-square-foot addition to the firm's now 44,000-square-foot storage warehouse, where rooftop solar panels generate all the power. “We needed more space for our clients,” Henderson tells Coffee Talk, “and at the same time we wanted to see if going solar was viable.”
The 45 foot-high addition, adds Henderson, is also engineered to withstand winds of at least 175 mph, a Category 5 hurricane rating. The addition cost around $240,000, and the total project cost about $1.2 million.
The rooftop solar system produces 214,000 kilowatt hours of electricity a year, about 18,000 kilowatt hours a month. The solar system has brought the company's energy cost to net zero, says Henderson, and it's also raised the value of the property.
The question Henderson gets asked the most about the project is: Will going solar produce a financial return, in future electric and power bills, that makes sense for others to do it?
In a 2015 interview, when Henderson first decided to go solar at his company's main warehouse, in a conversion project, he pegged the break-even point on the investment at about five years. That included $100,000 in federal tax credits. With the recent addition, the break-even point could now take seven years, he says. But he has no regrets — even if it takes a decade.
“It's still the right thing to do,” Henderson says. “We have met our goal of having a negative carbon footprint, and we are pleased with that part.”
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