Some people celebrate Earth Day with a vow to do more recycling.
ACE Recycling & Disposal is going far beyond that, by installing 919 solar panels to its headquarters in West Valley. The panels will yield 280 kilowatts of power per hour, or about $4,000 a month in electricity.
It will help offset the facility’s current power bill of about $10,000 a month, according to Matt Stalsberg, one of the company’s owners.
“We are moving forward with our goal to generate renewable energy as a step to be self-sufficient and secure our company’s future,” said Matt Stalsberg, one the company’s owners. “All of our green decisions have to make financial sense, because you can’t do it for free.”
Owned by Stalsberg and his father, Lon Stalsberg, ACE Recycling & Disposal is one of the largest independent haulers in the Western states, servicing the residential garbage and recycling pick-up in South Salt Lake City, Murray, Midvale, Tooele, West Jordan, Eagle Mountain, Bountiful, Alpine, Centerville, Bridger Valley, Wyo., and effective July 1, South Jordan. It services about 85,000 homes and about 1,200 commercial customers in northern Utah.
“We have served for 34 years cleaning up and hauling everything except for hazardous waste,” said Matt Stalsberg.
The company is building seven new parking structures at its headquarters at 2274 S. Technology Drive. They will support the solar panels while offering shaded parking for some of the company’s 190 employees.
The solar panels are being installed by the Midvale-based company, AuricSolar, Utah’s largest residential solar company.
“They seemed very qualified to do the job, ” said Matt Stalsberg. “They had good references, and they were never short on communications.”
The parking structure/solar will be the largest of its kind in Utah, according to Jerry Williams (Director of Commercial Sales of AuricSolar. The parking structures will be built starting in mid April and the panels will be installed with the system being fully operational after 6 weeks of construction.
Solar panels are just another step in Ace’s green initiatives.
About 30 percent of its trucking fleet runs on compressed natural gas, an environmentally friendly fuel.
The company’s headquarters, built in 2010, uses one of the largest geothermal heating systems in Utah, and its landscaping is zero scaped with water-wise plants. The company also turns recycled plastic into sidewalks that are sold in California. A complex spinning, heating and cooling process causes the plastic to compress into a strong, durable material.
“We’ve been looking at solar for the last couple of years and solar panels have gone down significantly in price. The high amount of sun we get in this state is pushing a lot of people in this direction,” said Matt Stalsberg.
“This is a good test to see how well solar works,” said Stalsberg. “We have another facility and we may take a look at adding solar there as well.”
