Fulton County celebrates solar panel installations on 46 more buildings

SANDY SPRINGS, Ga. — When the sun’s out, solar panels generate cheap, clean energy on the roof of the Dorothy C. Benson Senior Multipurpose Center off Vernon Woods in Sandy Springs.

Fulton County is installing solar panels on 53 of its facilities as a part of a push to have the sun power 25 percent of its electricity by 2030. The county says it hopes to have some installations complete by the end of 2025 with other major ones wrapping up early next year.

The Board of Commissioners hosted two ceremonies in late May on both sides of Atlanta, billing them as a major expansion of its sustainability program.

The other solar panel installation was just inside the city of South Fulton at the Evelyn G. Lowry Library at Cascade. Another existing installation from the original contract is at the Alpharetta Branch of the Fulton County Library System off Park Plaza.

Commissioners adopted a Sustainability and Resilience Plan in 2019, entering into a procurement agreement with Atlanta-based Cherry Street Energy a year later.

Jessica Lavender, the county’s Energy and Sustainability manager, announced completion of the Benson Center installation in early April.

“We started a smaller project in 2021 where we installed solar panels on seven buildings. That’s gone really well, and we’ve saved almost $150,000 since then,” Lavender said. “That went so well that we expanded our contract with that vendor to the 46 additional buildings.”

The county says commissioners approved a major expansion of the pilot program in December 2024 after its initial success.

Fulton County officials, including Commission Chairman Robb Pitts and Commissioner Bob Ellis, joined Cherry Street Energy CEO and Founder Michael Chanin for the May 30 celebration of clean energy expansion. While it was a rainy morning, the installation’s springtime completion is set to have the solar panels soaking up the sun all summer.

Under the agreement, Cherry Street sells the generated electricity to the county at a lower rate than commercial electric utilities like Georgia Power. Because the local company owns, maintains and operates the systems, county officials say it’s a win-win.

The program is expected to generate $2.4 million in taxpayer savings over the agreement’s 20-year term. The solar panels are expected to last that long as well.

Some of Cherry Street Energy’s clients include Emory University, the cities of Atlanta and Savannah and Hartfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. One representative pitched a similar agreement to the Sandy Springs City Council in March.

The county says the shift to solar energy supports its adopted environmental goals and is expected to bring down long-term energy costs, with lower prices compared to traditional commercial rates.

The solar panel installations, especially their cost savings for local governments, are achievable through tax incentives within the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 that can accelerate the transition to clean energy. The accelerant is a tax credit that allows Cherry Street Energy to sell electricity to the county at a competitive market rate.

The county says the new batch of solar panels are expected to generate more than eight times as much electricity as the first seven sites, or 4,695 kilowatts.

When the current program wraps up next year, Fulton County will be generating more than 5,000 kW across its facilities with solar energy.