Automotive News - September 23, 2019 - Best Practices Supplement - A23

SEPTEMBER 23, 2019 | 23
E L D O R A D O C H E V R O L E T A N D E L D O R A D O M A Z D A , M C K I N N E Y, T E X A S

Welcoming the sun, repelling the hail
Dealer's solar garden
project seeks to cut
energy, insurance costs
Published in Automotive News March 25, 2019
Michael Wayland

autonews@crain.com

hile Texas is known for its oil
riches, dealer Stan Graff is setting his sights on solar energy
and taking advantage of the
state's deregulated electricity market to boost
profits for two of his stores.
Graff plans to spend up to $5 million to install 37 car canopies, including 17 topped with
3,456 solar panels, at El Dorado Chevrolet and
El Dorado Mazda in McKinney, north of Dallas.
The project will result in net-zero-energy
buildings on the two dealerships' 28-acre
campus, meaning that the amount of renewable energy created annually will exceed the
energy used by the stores' buildings.
In many states, the local utility would be obligated to buy that surplus electricity. But Texas' deregulated market doesn't require that,
and deals must be negotiated individually. So
Graff worked on an alternative with Sunfinity
Renewable Energy, a Dallas solar power company.
Under their arrangement, Sunfinity will set
up the dealerships' installation as a "community solar project" - sometimes referred to as
a solar garden or shared renewable energy
plant - in which a business or community
shares the energy generated from the solar
panels.
"That was the big win," said John Billingsley,
CEO of Sunfinity.
The system is expected to offset more than 45
million kilowatt-hours of electricity over a
30-year life, and to save Graff more than $4 million in electricity expenses. Excess energy not
used on-site will be exported to the state's power grid, generating electricity credits for Graff's
dealerships through a negotiated contract with
a retail electric provider, Billingsley said.

Hail protection
Those expected savings and credits are in
addition to negotiated insurance premium reductions, as the canopies will cover roughly
1,200 vehicles - protecting them from hail, a
persistent threat in that region of Texas.

Above and top, renderings provide before-andafter views of El Dorado Chevrolet's lot. At
left, an aerial rendering shows blue canopies
with solar panels and other canopies that
could receive panels later.

Dallas-area dealer Stan Graff plans to
install 37 vehicle canopies at 2
dealerships, topped with solar panels
that are expected to provide more
than enough power for the stores and
lower hail insurance costs.

"This is a huge capital expenditure, and a lot
of dealerships wouldn't be able to do this,"
Graff said. "It's going to allow us to lower our
insurance costs, utility costs, a better environment."
After hailstorms in recent years, Mark
Welch, general manager of all four of Graff's
North Texas stores, said combined hail insurance costs for the four dealerships more than
quadrupled since 2016. "As a dealer, what we
have to make a decision on is we're either going to reduce our inventory considerably,
which impacts our customer benefit and the
manufacturer would pout, or we're going to
have to find a way to protect our cars and drive
that cost down," he said.
Planning for the project began more than a
year ago. Construction is expected to begin
soon and be completed in the third quarter. It

is the latest green initiative for Graff, an outdoorsman who owns a 4,000-acre ranch.

Saving green
Other programs include landscape design
using plants suited for Texas with low water
requirements, LED lighting, a recycling program to cut solid waste disposal by 35 percent
or more and a filtration system to recycle water from floor-cleaning equipment.
"When we built this [Chevrolet] dealership
back in 2002, we tried to do some innovative
things," Graff said. "I love the outdoors and it just
made good sense. It was also a way to be more
cost effective. We thought we would do some
things to lower our water costs, lower our energy
consumption and things like that."
Such actions, according to officials, have
saved the El Dorado dealerships hundreds of
thousands of dollars since the stores were
built.
Sunfinity, Billingsley said, is in talks with
dealers from several other states such as California, Georgia and Illinois to create similar
solar projects.
Brad Snyder, president of Sunfinity's commercial division, said insurance savings for
dealers are expected to vary by provider, policy, inventory and even location. a

Automotive News - September 23, 2019 - Best Practices Supplement

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