Coney Island station’s pricy solar panels have been dark for 7 years. No one knows when they’re coming back.
“We're wasting all of that solar energy every day that it’s not running.”
Stillwell Terminal’s gleaming solar panel roof was once touted by the MTA as the centerpiece of a $310 million rehabilitation of the Coney Island station, which the transit agency declared a “Sparkling Jewel.” Yet the state-of-the-art project, the largest of its kind in the nation to cover a transit facility, was in operation for only seven years — and it hasn’t provided power since 2012.
When the terminal flooded during Superstorm Sandy, the water knocked out electrical equipment at the street level. But the solar panels, which are hurricane resistant, went largely undamaged. In May 2014, the MTA declared that plans were “currently underway for the system’s rehabilitation.” More than five years later, the panels are still offline.
“It was the biggest system of its kind in the world when it was built and really, New York City Transit and MTA were incredibly visionary and bold to build it in the first place because it really did set a precedent in all kinds of ways,” said Gregory Kiss, the architect of the sun-powered roof.