More than 30 quick-serve burger locations in Northern Illinois will now run on solar energy thanks to a new partnership.
Thirty-one Wendy's and McDonald's locations across Chicago and Kankakee County have partnered with Perch Energy to enroll in community solar. The restaurants, owned by Mike Allegro of All Star Management, are estimated to save more than $20,000 annually for 20 years on their electricity costs from local community solar farms in Rockford and Pontiac, Ill.
In their first round of community solar subscriptions with Perch Energy, the restaurants will lock in about half a million dollars of savings from solar farms producing almost eight MW of clean electricity. As additional capacity becomes available, the stores will have the opportunity to double their initial subscription to achieve their estimated $1 million savings potential. Perch Energy says the energy produced from these solar farms is the carbon equivalent of avoiding 13,437 metric tons of CO2 emissions, or like removing 3,134 cars from the road each year.
Solar on Earth, a community solar customer acquisition organization, facilitated the partnership between Perch and All Star Management Solar on Earth partners with Perch in six states to help individuals and businesses access the cost-savings of clean energy.
[READ MORE: Walmart invests in 74 community solar projects]
“It was an easy decision," said Allegro. "A lot of our restaurants are open early and close late. And some are open 24 hours a day, so we use a lot of electricity. Everything is more expensive these days, but while the cost of everything else is going up, it’s one bill that Perch and Solar On Earth are helping to bring back down.”
The solar farms Allegro is subscribed to are located near Rockland and Pontiac which provides those communities with the added benefit of local power generation, which increases the resiliency and reliability of the local energy grid helping the utility — ComEd — meet its renewable energy requirement