Tennessee may not strike people as the most progressive state with 46% of the population conservative and 27% moderate, according to a Pew Research Center poll. You might not expect it to be a bastion of green energy, but the greater Chattanooga area is stepping out in front of many other parts of the U.S. as a solar pioneer. Among other firsts, Chattanooga Metropolitan Airport is the nation’s first and only airport with a solar farm that generates enough power to supply its total energy needs.

 

The city of 185,000 is situated in southern Tennessee, near the Georgia border. It’s taken advantage of an average 207 sunny days per year to power several major solar projects. For example, Volkswagen has a 33-acre solar park in Chattanooga and recently chose the city for its first U.S. electric vehicle manufacturing facility. BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee built a 10,000 solar panel facility at its Chattanooga headquarters. Other proud Chattanooga accomplishments include Majestic Theater, the first LEED Gold Certified theater in the US and the country’s second largest LEED Gold Certified office campus.

 

“[The airport] may not be the country’s largest or most amenity-packed airport, but there’s no question that Chattanooga Airport has made sustainability a top priority,” said Zach Honig, editor-at-large for The Points Guy, as quoted in Newsweek. “An expansive solar field became fully operational one year before the pandemic, producing enough power to support the entire airport. Outside the terminal building, there’s a Tesla supercharger and electric-vehicle charging stations.”

 

Chattanooga Metropolitan Airport also switched out the airfield’s old incandescent lights for more energy-efficient LEDs. The terminal building’s exterior and interior lighting upgraded to compact florescent lights and hooked up to motion detectors so that lights were used only when needed. These simple lighting changes allowed the Chattanooga Airport to reduce its electric consumption by a megawatt per year. (inhabitat)