On May 4th, 2011, Hopkins County officials joined Sheffield Metals International, Horn Brothers Roofing and others in celebrating the activation of a 190kW solar metal roofing installation atop the Hopkins County Civic Center in Sulphur Springs, TX. The system, comprised of products and components offered by Sheffield Metals of Sheffield Village, OH, was installed as part of the repair of two aging sections of low-slope metal roofing over the civic center’s horse stables.

The project was valued at just over $1 million, but cost the county nothing, thanks to $827,000 in funding through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (AARA) and $175,000 in rebates from Oncor, the local electric utility. In addition to Sulphur Springs, Oncor supplies power to nearly seven million customers throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

The electrical installation was handled by CamSolar, a Dallas-Fort Worth-based contractor. Preliminary calculations are that the roof will be able to produce approximately 292,355 kWh of electricity annually, saving approximately $45,000 per year on utility bills, and resulting in a CO2 reduction of 454,874 lbs. annually.

To facilitate the installation of the new low-slope metal roof over the old, Horn Brothers used Sheffield’s TOPR™ sub-framing which is designed to fasten through the existing roof surface into the building’s original roof framing. The new roof panels—formed at the roof’s edge to lengths of up to 170’—were then attached to the top chord of the TOPR members. Prior to installation, the panels were fitted with a special thin-film solar laminate, adhesively fused to the panels’ surface, thus transforming them into Sheffield’s SOLR™ PV metal roofing.

At the time of completion the project was the largest building-integrated thin-film laminate solar array on a low-slope metal roof in the state. Adding to the renewable energy benefits of the new roof system, the facility will be able to collect data from the system in real time and utilize the information to calculate savings.