Betting on renewables with solar canopy project

Caesars Entertainment is betting on renewable energy with the recent installation of a solar canopy project on several of its properties in New Jersey.

By Paul MacDonald

When it comes to betting on smart energy management and reducing its carbon footprint, the hotel and casino company Caesars Entertainment views solar power as a sure thing.

The company, which has more than 50 properties, has been involved in installing smaller off-site solar power projects on some of its managed casinos but it recently installed a larger solar project on several of its properties in New Jersey.                               

This most recent project was completed when the company, working with DSD Renewables, built a four canopy, 6.4 MW solar portfolio at its Atlantic City destinations. The installations are across two different Atlantic City properties and will produce over 9,000 MWh of clean energy each year.

A fifth canopy is currently under development and is slated to be completed this year, bringing the Atlantic City solar portfolio to 7.34 MW.

“We’re really proud of these projects,” says Jeff Ruskowitz, Director of Sustainable Operations at Caesars Entertainment Corporation. “They are definitely the most ambitious solar projects we’ve done so far and we’re happy with how they have turned out.”

Ruskowitz notes that the company’s Corporate Sustainability Report outlines how Caesars has undertaken a variety of initiatives on power reductions and energy efficiencies. “But the New Jersey solar projects take that to the next level, and bring actual renewable energy to the grid.

“This is something that we are looking at doing more of, and we have a number of projects in the pipeline that we are looking at. These New Jersey projects will be the first of many.”

Big picture, the company has committed to achieving net zero emissions by 2050, and solar projects are going to be part of reaching that goal.

Although it may be best known for its flagship property Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Caesars Entertainment, Inc. is one of the world’s most diversified casino-entertainment providers. Since its beginning in Reno, Nevada, in 1937, Caesars Entertainment, Inc. has grown through development of new resorts, expansions and acquisitions, and operates primarily under the Caesars, Harrah’s, Horseshoe, and Eldorado brand names.

Through its leadership position in the industry, the company also feels it could play a significant role in implementing renewable energy in the entertainment industry.

Going forward, the company’s projects will include off-site and on-site solar, says Ruskowitz.

Caesars Entertainment, working with DSD Renewables, built a four canopy, 6.4 MW solar portfolio at its Atlantic City destinations. The installations are across two different Atlantic City properties and will produce over 9,000 MWh of clean energy each year.

“As a company, we are a little bit limited with what we can do on site because of the way our buildings are—they tend to be very vertical with not a lot of roof space. So covered parking is key, and we have some convention centers we are also looking at for rooftop solar.”

Caesars is one of the largest customers of the local utility, Atlantic City Electric, in Atlantic City, and the new solar projects will offset approximately six percent of its energy needs for the resort properties in the area, taking energy load off the utility and making energy resources available for other customers.

The completed projects include 1.7 MW and 886 kW solar garage canopies at Caesars Atlantic City, and two installations at Harrah’s Resort Atlantic City: a 1.9 MW solar canopy at Harrah’s self-park garage and a 1.9 MW canopy at Harrah’s valet garage.

The effort also includes a 913 kW solar rooftop system at Harrah’s Waterfront Conference Center that will be installed this year, further enhancing the LEED-certified convention space as a green meeting destination. 

The canopies provide shaded parking for staff and customers and reduce snow removal costs, while the rooftop system will extend the roof’s lifespan and reduce cooling needs by limiting UV exposure.

With the existing structural layout, building heights, and the location of the project sites being in such close proximity to the coast, this created an added layer of complexity to the solar projects.

To deal with the complexity and make the project a success, Caesars sought a strong solar development and financing partner to offset a portion of their energy consumption with onsite renewables. A big challenge with these projects was to find a creative partner with strong design and engineering capabilities to deploy the biggest solar energy system possible within the available real estate under the existing site challenges in this dense urban area of New Jersey. And that is where DSD Renewables entered the picture.

DSD’s in-house canopy team created canopy engineering designs that are tailored to deal with the site challenges, such as high wind load and occupancy factors, through custom structural connections that allow the system to be deployed safely and efficiently.

	A consideration—not necessarily as high a priority perhaps with a remote solar project for example—was the aesthetics of the Caesars Atlantic City solar projects. The company wanted to make sure the solar projects look good, and feel they have been successful at doing exactly that.

“We were faced with unique development obstacles, but our team was up to the challenge, working closely with Caesars and entities like the Casino Redevelopment Authority to bring these projects to fruition,” says Dan O’Brien, Senior Vice-President, Energy Solutions – Direct at DSD.

O’Brien explained that government incentives were a major component of the Atlantic City projects, including the federal investment tax credit funded under the Inflation Reduction Act. He noted that New Jersey is one of the leading states in renewable energy deployment, and that the state’s Transitional Renewable Energy Certificates (TREC) program was critical to making the project economics work for both Caesars and DSD.

“This was the first time that New Jersey has had an incentive that was locked in for 15 years,” says O’Brien. “What that means from a financing perspective is that it allowed DSD to underwrite a locked-in annual revenue stream.” Combined with the federal ITC and accelerated depreciation, the projects were able to bear the high cost and complexity of deployment.

Solar canopy projects are more costly than traditional ground or roof mounted solar, and this needs to be reflected with the incentives, says O’Brien.

“Without the incentives, these kind of projects would not pencil out from an investment perspective—the cost per kilowatt hour from the solar energy projects would have been much greater than New Jersey’s market cost of electricity right now. It is critical that New Jersey continues to refine its incentives based on deployment type so that it can continue to be a national leader in renewable energy.”

DSD Renewables is based in neighboring New York State, and develops projects across the U.S., but as noted, O’Brien said the Caesars projects posed some specific challenges that are not typical in other areas.

The Caesars casinos operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, so there was really no downtime at all for project installation and corresponding logistics. DSD Renewables, working with Caesars, carefully planned the project out, to minimize disruptions, pace the construction, and build it in phases.

“You have sites that are almost directly on the water, in a hurricane-rated wind zone, with tall heights—these three factors alone required an immense amount of engineering, as well as complex installation attachment mechanisms to ensure that when there is a worst case scenario, a 100-year-old storm, the canopies will not be a risk to Caesars, their employees, and their customers.”

He also noted that since two of the locations were casinos, they have their own unique regulations—they had to get approvals from both the New Jersey Casino Redevelopment Authority and the New Jersey Division of Community Affairs.

“A developer would not need to get those approvals if they were looking to build a canopy project or another system type, like a rooftop project, outside of Atlantic City or on a building that was not a casino.

“But we worked with those various entities, and they were all pro-active and reasonable because they believed in these solar projects.” The process also involved the local utility, Atlantic City Electric.

The casinos, also unlike a retail store, for example, operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, so there is really no downtime at all for project installation and corresponding logistics. “We’re busy properties,” says Ruskowitz. “The building was going on last summer, and if we were to lose an entire floor of parking on the July Fourth weekend, that would have a huge impact.”

DSD Renewables, working with Caesars, planned the project out, to minimize disruptions, pace the construction, and build it in phases. Closures of the parking drives and areas were carefully scheduled out.

“We tried to get as much operational information as we could to reduce operational impact to the facilities, such as finding out when their peak parking capacity periods were, for example,” says O’Brien.

DSD planned out all parts of the project, from optimizing the use of cranes for lifts to installation of steel, to reduce disruption and maximize safety, on the site.

	DSD Renewables developed and financed the Atlantic City Caesars installations and will serve as the long-term owner and operator of the systems. DSD is exploring additional projects with Caesars Entertainment at other destinations across the U.S.

Unlike a lot of other solar projects, there was no laydown area available at the sites. They carefully scheduled the logistics of the steel deliveries, so that when primary steel components were brought up, they could be assembled that day.

“It was a tough needle to thread because when we were raising up the steel columns we needed to make sure that the bracing and brackets were already installed on the garage top so we could place the columns with the crane, and then bolt them in,” explains O’Brien. “Our team was basically performing just in time assembly.

“We were also extra careful when we connected the system to the properties, because there is always the potential for electrical outages,” he added. “You find a way to
work through situations, and that takes working in tandem with the customer.”

Construction on the four projects began in June 2022 and achieved mechanical completion in June 2023, resulting in garage top solar canopies being installed above the Caesars Atlantic City garage and Harrah’s self-park and valet garages totaling 7.34 MW.

Another consideration, not necessarily as high a priority perhaps with a remote solar project for example, is the aesthetics of the Caesars projects.

“We want to make sure the projects look good,” says Ruskowitz. “That’s important to us. We have attractive hotel facilities and it’s important that the look of the solar projects fits in well with the rest of the property.”

As noted, the projects are right on the property, not on a site away from the property. Caesars looks at the solar projects as making a design statement, rather than just being steel and solar panels.

“I personally think the solar panels look great,” says Ruskowitz. “Our guests are going to be seeing those panels every day, and I think they are going to love them,” he added.

DSD Renewables put together renderings of the canopies, so Caesars executives, and the operating management, could see what the finished product would look like. The company is very conscious that in addition to delivering the financial savings as planned, that projects get the support of the people who work at the facilities.

“We can put together a proposal, but it’s important that we get buy-in at the corporate level, and at the facility level which can mean providing items like custom renderings,” says O’Brien.

The installation at the Convention Center is a bit different than the casino parking projects, in that it is a rooftop installation, and the facility is treated differently from a code perspective because it is an emergency shelter location. As a result, it has a higher code requirement for structural capacity.

They considered a traditional rooftop racking system, but that would have required a large number of roof penetrations.

“The team and structural engineers looked at it and saw that there was a way to install a rooftop canopy, so instead of installing individual panels on the rooftop with basic racking, they designed a system that mimicked the parking garage style canopies,” says O’Brien. Cross beams and bracing were designed to lift the panels high enough above the roof so that services, such as HVAC, could be accessed. It was a very custom solution, says O’Brien.

DSD Renewables uses only Tier 1 components on their projects, and involves Black & Veatch to perform analysis to support their high quality standards—in the case of the
Caesars project, this involved Qcells solar panels and SMA inverters. The custom steel structures were designed and engineered in-house, and were fabricated in the U.S.

DSD developed and financed the installations and will serve as the long-term owner and operator of the systems. DSD is exploring additional projects with Caesars Entertainment at other destinations across the U.S. “We look forward to helping Caesars move even closer to their sustainability targets with more projects down the line,” says O’Brien.

Q3 2024