CLOVER, S.C. — From the outside in, Clover’s newest Domino’s looks like any other pizza place. But its secret is hidden in plain sight.
The roof is covered in solar panels and so are the four columns on the sides of the building, but they’re designed to look like wood paneling.
“We’re trying to use the building as an educational tool that hey we’re trying to do right by the environment and do some things that have never been done before,” said Ryan Swanson, vice president of marketing and restaurant development.
Swanson said the restaurant was designed to be as energy-efficient as possible. It has the best insulation and the most efficient lighting system. Even its delivery vehicles are fueled by on-site EV chargers connected to the solar system.
“So we’re literally driving vehicles that have been powered by the sun,” he said.
The system does not include a battery backup. Swanson said he preferred to sell back excess solar power to his utility provider, York Electric Cooperative, and use its power as backup, rather than storing it on-site for use overnight.
The restaurant also has a big exception keeping the building from running entirely on solar at any given time: the oven is gas-powered.
The restaurant had considered an electric oven, Swanson said, but it opted for the same gas system every other franchise in the area had.
Given the volume of pizza these ovens are expected to produce, Swanson said he wanted to see what the electric output from the solar system looked like before adding what would likely be the biggest energy consumer to the electric load.
Once he sees a few monthly bills and can determine a baseline, Swanson said the restaurant may revisit the ovens and swap them out with the electric models.
The store opened in late December and expects to know in the next few months how efficiently the system is operating.
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