Workers and master electricians install solar electric panels in part of the parking lot at the Mt. Abram ski area in Greenwood.
Mt. Abram's 803 solar-electric panels will cover about an acre of the ski area's parking lot.
Mt. Abram's new panels are expected to generate enough electricity yearly to power 46,000 average Maine homes and offset 70 percent of the ski area’s electricity use.
Mt. Abram's $940,000 solar power project was funded in part with a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Energy for America Program.
The Mt. Abram Ski Area has installed high-efficiency snow guns in its effort to be a “sustainable mountain playground.”
Everett Rideout, master electrician, right, installs a solar electric panel into the array of more than 800 panels at the Mt. Abram ski area.
Naoto Inoue, left, president of Talmage Solar Engineering Inc., explains how the panels will be connected to each other and the inverters to Matt Hancock, co-owner of Mt. Abram.
Autumn colors surround the hundreds of solar-electric panels installed at Mt. Abram in Greenwood. Electricity, diesel fuel and propane account for as much as a quarter of the ski area’s million-dollar budget.
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