Marianas Business Plaza solar farm part of a green vision

The 2,400 solar panels of the Marianas Business Plaza produces between 70 and 90 percent of the building’s power, according to owner Erick Van Der Maas, and is part of his goal to have one of the greenest, if not the greenest, building in the Pacific.

“I was always interested in clean energy,” he told Saipan Tribune.

The idea for the solar farm was hatched five years ago, and was realized in November, after permitting and manufacturing was completed over the last several years.

The solar farm was designed and built by N15 Architects and Hofschneider Engineering. GPPC, Inc. was the contractor.

Some 200 panels each are routed to the farm’s 12 converter boxes. Energy is carried underground and around the side of the building into a back room where six inverters hum and whir as long as the sun is out.

When a large cloud passes, they go quiet, but just for a minute, said Van Der Maas. Then they start are whirring again.

The structures outside are built to withstand 185 mph wind load. The panels produce an average of 2,000 kilowatts a day on an island with 5.25 peak sun hours.

“We are one of the greenest or the greenest buildings in the Pacific…I look around and I can’t find so far a greener building than us,” he said.

“We don’t use central air-conditioning, which is an enormous waste of energy. We painted our roofs white to be reflective. We try to collect water when we can,” he added.

Aquaponics is another area they are looking to develop, he said. Right now, they have a facility on the plaza’s first floor and are looking to move it to the third floor soon to have self-made lettuce and other vegetables.

In this facility, fish will defecate in their water tanks, then plants will use this for nitrate as well as clean the water.

He said the food that’s not finished at MBP’s 360 Restaurant will be dried and fed to the fish again “so there is little waste, and little water waste as well” in a process that for the most part is pesticide- and fertilizer-free, Van Der Maas said.

The “icing on the cake” is the harvest of fish at the end of the year.

“Pesticide-free vegetables, healthy fish…you know what you get when you eat here,” he said.

This new aquaponic venture will be used solely for the restaurant but Van Der Maas hopes younger people on Saipan will start to develop the field on a bigger scale.

He believes Saipan can become an eco-friendly destination for tourists.

In the Pacific, he said, tourists want to go to a place that is clean.