Last Updated on February 28, 2025 by Anne Brock
Do these TOP PLANT PROBLEMS keep you awake at night?
- Extended Plant Downtime
- Operational Costs
- Energy Inefficiency
- Reliability Concerns
- Sustainability Requirements
Could SOLAR + STORAGE provide a SOLUTION for your facility? Solar + storage could help. Here is a manufacturing plant manager or warehousing manager guide to solar + storage benefits.
Extended Plant Downtime
Tens of thousands of dollars are likely going down the drain when your manufacturing plant incurs an unplanned power grid outage without adequate backup. A review of the economic costs of power outages uncovered a range of risks for commercial businesses and communities in power outage scenarios.
The study A flexible framework for modeling customer damage functions for power outages found that a hypothetical food manufacturing plant could suffer $200,000 in losses in one day of a power outage, with much of that happening within the first few hours.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory provides an open-access Customer Damage Function Calculator to help individual facilities predict damage amounts from unplanned downtime.
Behind-the-meter solar photovoltaics paired with batteries for energy storage could enhance an existing generator backup plan for your facility. Planning could be made to ensure critical loads in your facility have redundancy beyond the short-term peace of mind you may have from generator power.
Operational Costs
Your monthly utility bill is likely one of your most significant operational costs. Is there a way to replace that unpredictable and rising expense with a monthly rate within your control? There is, with the levelized cost of energy that can be calculated for the long term.
Berkeley Lab reports that average retail electricity prices rose 4.8% annually from 2019 through 2023. Kiplinger suggests businesses should plan for another 2% to 4% higher rate for electricity each year. Yet the Solar Technologies Office reports that as of 2020, the typical levelized cost of energy for commercial solar was already as low as 9 cents per kilowatt-hour, likely lower than the rate on your electric bill. As technology improves and as federal incentives are applied, that cost is trending even lower. In fact, Solar Alliance has completed numerous solar projects at less than 3 cents per kilowatt-hour as the levelized cost of energy over 25 years.
How does your plant’s current utility bill rate compare to under 3 to 9 cents per kilowatt-hour? As of early 2025, here’s a look at business rates for energy per kilowatt-hour at some of East Tennessee’s local utilities. These are always subject to change:
Knoxville Utilities Board – GSA-1: $0.13516
Lenoir City Utilities Board – GSA-1: $0.12433
City of Maryville – GSA-1: $0.11445
Appalachian Electric Coopertive – GSA: $0.12304
Energy Inefficiency
Does your facility currently have an ongoing energy monitoring system? Have you upgraded to the most energy efficient version of your equipment, including heating and air systems and lighting? Have you already taken full advantage of federal incentives to improve energy efficiency?
At Solar Alliance, we advise evaluating your current status first, which we can assist with, prior to taking on a new renewable energy production system. It may be that your business can benefit most from a graduated approach to adding solar and storage, after the initial steps of evaluating for energy efficiency.
Could the very way you schedule and use your equipment be needlessly robbing you of excess energy and its rising costs? Energy monitoring and a related plan could help optimize for maximum efficiency, even before adding renewable energy production.
Reliability Concerns
How reliable is your overall facility and its processes? When did you last upgrade your electrical systems? Are you currently able to safely accommodate all of your loads? Are you paying an unnecessary Demand Charge on top of your regular monthly utility bill, because of the way your energy usage spikes at certain times?
Evaluating your overall energy usage, upgrading as needed, then adding clean, reliable solar energy with storage is a path toward predictable, lower-cost energy along with the resilience of a backup power system. Resilience and reliability can add peace of mind to your day-to-day operations.
Sustainability Requirements
Do you have orders from your corporate office to lower the carbon footprint of the facility, go Net Zero, or otherwise show a commitment to sustainability? We work with businesses on a wide spectrum of sustainability requirements and goals. Do you strive to offset all of your electrical usage or only a small percentage of it?
We meet you where you are, to align with your objectives and find a solution to fit your timetable, budget and goals.
Your Clean Energy Partner
At Solar Alliance, we have more than a dozen years of experience in commercial solar photovoltaic work. Local utility companies trust us, large manufacturing leaders call on us, and small business owners depend on us when they examine energy as a critical aspect of their bottom line.
Once we’ve designed, permitted and procured your customized system, our NABCEP-certified supervisors lead a team on site to efficiently construct it, coordinating with inspectors and the local utility.
Contact us today online to get started meeting your objectives with clean, solar energy. Or call Sales Director Tom Talmage at 865-888-6055.