Team Toyota in Pennsylvania going places with solar power

A Pennsylvania Toyota dealership has installed a microgrid energy system—featuring rooftop solar—that is saving it money and helping combat grid blackouts.

By Tony Kryzanowski

With the installation of a microgrid energy system featuring rooftop solar power generation and battery storage, Team Toyota of Glen Mills in Pennsylvania, expects savings in energy costs of $2 million over the next 25 years—and greater peace of mind.

The dealership’s Distributed Energy Resource (DER) system features a TerraSol Energies 700-kilowatt (kW) rooftop solar array connected to an 820-kilowatt hour (820 kWh) Fortress Power eSpire commercial energy storage system. This represents a partnership among three Pennsylvania-based companies on this $1.8 million project.

Now complete, Team Toyota owns and operates the system. Though it is not the primary power source for the auto dealership, it will offset about 80 percent of the site consumption and 50 percent of its peak demand. In off grid mode, it can support the entire facility load.

The brain that operates and coordinates the system is a Keystone microgrid controller provided by Fortress Power which determines when the auto dealership will draw power entirely from the solar array, from both the solar array and the battery storage system, or from PECO Energy, which is the area’s power utility and grid operator. PECO is a private company that supplies power and gas to customers in Philadelphia, as well as surrounding counties. With this installation, Team Toyota was able to benefit from a solar power incentive program offered by PECO in the first year of power generation because of the contribution it is making to grid stability in an area where it is much needed.

In normal operation, the site is powered by the grid. However, the Team Toyota distributed energy system is designed to peak shave how much power the dealership will draw from PECO, enabling reduction in demand charges and reducing stress on the grid. If its peak target threshold is exceeded, then the battery storage system engages to supplement the dealership’s power needs, thus minimizing conventional utility-sourced power. In the event of a power outage, the entire site can be powered by the DER system for up to four hours at full load.

Conversely, because of connection to the grid, the solar array is able to feed excess power production, beyond what it takes to keep the dealership operating and the batteries fully charged, into the PECO grid network on a net metering basis, thus generating a credit for Team Toyota against its power consumption.

From the dealership’s perspective, the solar/storage system provides them with a measure of insurance against power interruption from the utility. In the event of a power outage, the battery system will provide the dealership with its energy needs for up to four hours without solar generation and for most of the day if the rooftop solar array is generating power, reducing draw on the battery, thereby enabling even longer durations when the sun is out.

The Team Toyota dealership of Glen Mills, Pennsylvania has a Distributed Energy Resource (DER) system featuring a TerraSol Energies 700-kilowatt rooftop solar array connected to an 820-kilowatt hour Fortress Power eSpire commercial energy storage system.

“In the event of a grid failure, the Team Toyota system will disconnect itself from the grid and form a microgrid or an island,” says Matt Santoleri, Director of Operations at TerraSol Energies, “at which point the building would be powered solely on solar and battery storage power.”

Rob Santoleri, TerraSol Energies CEO, describes this combination of rooftop solar and storage at this scale as “an extremely unique project at this time” because of the involvement of three Pennsylvania-based companies, “especially in this industry where everything is international.”

While the technology is proven and the company has significant experience installing microgrids, what the Team Toyota project really represents is a safe proving ground for battery storage and power in combination with solar power generation, as well as showing the significant cost benefits for projects where TerraSol Energies, in partnership with Fortress Power, specialize. Those are projects where customer power demand is in the range of 250 kW to 2 MW.

“This project shows that not only auto dealerships, but the overall commercial/industrial sector can benefit greatly,” says Santoleri.

“With solar and energy storage together, it provides the full package for energy independence, and any company can see the value in that. You have reliable power, even when the energy grid is unreliable. It also gives them financial freedom from the utility company.”

In fact, TerraSol already has another solar/storage project in partnership with Fortress Power, featuring their eSpire battery system, approved for a new building at the North Wilmington Library in Wilmington, Delaware. It will begin construction in 2026.

	With the solar project installation, the Team Toyota dealership was able to benefit from a solar power incentive program offered by utility PECO in the first year of power generation because of the contribution it is making to grid stability in an area where it is much needed.

They will also install rooftop solar at two other Team Toyota sites in Pennsylvania, which as yet have not included battery storage because they have more reliable power from the grid.

TerraSol Energies has been doing a lot of business in the commercial rooftop solar space over the last decade and in particular with a number of auto dealerships over the past seven years. This is what led the company to have a conversation with Team Toyota in Glen Mills.

“Auto dealerships are a great candidate for solar, and now we have discovered that they are also a great candidate for energy storage because they use a lot of power, they own their property and they have a lot of roof space,” says Rob Santoleri.

What also helped to advance the Team Toyota project was that the dealership was already considering a roof replacement. So, it made sense to install the rooftop solar array in tandem with that project.

As conversations unfolded, it became obvious that the ‘pain points’ with Team Toyota were not only wanting to reduce their electricity costs, but also combat issues with power outages occurring more frequently, which was disrupting their business. The dealership came onboard early on to advance this project once the pitch was made because in addition to energy savings and power reliability, the payback period in the upfront cost was very short. It helped that the project qualified for the 30 percent federal Investment Tax Credit.

Fortress Power Commercial and Industrial Engineer Kyle Bannon adds that rooftop solar with storage also makes a lot of sense particularly for auto dealerships because of the growing number of electric vehicles that they are selling. As a result of more electric vehicle sales, many auto dealerships find that their on-site electric power consumption is growing significantly. He adds that some car companies will actually limit how many electric vehicles they will send to a dealership based on their vehicle charging capacity.

The Team Toyota’s Distributed Energy Resource (DER) system will offset about 80 percent of the site consumption and 50 percent of its peak demand. In off grid mode, it can support the entire facility load. The Team Toyota dealership owns and operates the system.

Project development at Team Toyota began in September 2024 with solar power generation beginning in March 2025, and the entire solar/battery storage system becoming operational in August 2025.

The rooftop array spans two roofs, equipped with 1220 Qcell-brand, 485 watt, bifacial solar panels with APsmart brand rapid shutdown devices. The inverters are SMA Solar Core1 models, paired with SMA’s data manager devices. The racking system used on the re-coated flat roof was provided by PanelClaw, and on the adjacent metal seam standing roof building, the racking system was a combination of S-5! brand clamps with IronRidge-brand rails.

The ground-based Fortress battery nerve centre consists of three Delta-brand, 125 kW bi-directional 480 volt inverters paired with three CATL-brand 280 kWh battery cabinets. It also contains Fortress’s microgrid controller cabinet.

“The combination of the hardware plus the software is an integral part of making sure that these systems operate in a way that does save Team Toyota money,” Bannon says. “There are plenty of hardware options out there, but to have both the hardware and software option from one company is not typical.”

He adds that Fortress Energy’s Keystone Energy Management System (EMS) is really the star of the show because it coordinates with the solar inverters, battery systems and the utility to control where power is sourced when and how it is transmitted to save the customer money on their power bills while also providing system resiliency. He describes it as a very “nuanced” system, but also a complex project from the perspective of Fortress, having to coordinate power distribution from three sources. But the company’s vertically integrated approach to its battery storage and distribution systems is what differentiates Fortress from other battery storage system providers. Although they combine system components from various suppliers, the customer only deals with one company from installation to after-sales support.

With the Team Toyota project, the goal was to minimize business disruption during construction. So, any planned outages were handled on Sundays when it was closed. A good example of that desire to minimize disruption is the effort it took to connect the solar/storage microgrid to the utility, which Matt Santoleri describes as the equivalent of open-heart surgery.

“We basically had to excavate the access road and locate the primary conduits that were feeding the building. We cut into the conduits and redirected the wires into our new main switch gear and reconnected power back into the building,” he says. “It took eight workers ten hours on a Sunday to complete. The good news is that we never affected the dealership operation throughout all of our work on the project.”

Bannon says concerning the potential market for microgrids like the Team Toyota system, technological advancements are driving the market, adding that five years ago, it would have been unlikely that this project would have been built in Pennsylvania.

“The price is dropping and the quality is improving at exponential rates,” he says. “You’re going to see more and more projects like this one in places like the Northeast. It’s so encouraging to also see cooperation from companies like PECO because renewables and projects like this can help bolster their grid while ultimately also saving people money.”

Q1 2026