Solar Power

Solar panels on MI home

Solar power is just one component of a much broader City effort to address greenhouse gas impacts of both government operations and our local residents. At the end of 2022, Mercer Island had 242 known solar installations on homes, businesses, schools, churches, and at the City's Community and Event Center, with about 2250 kilowatts of combined capacity (equivalent to a large 220-foot-tall commercial wind turbine). These range in size from just a few kilowatts to some giant rooftop arrays at Northwood Elementary and Islander Middle School, producing 100 kilowatts each!  View latest solar map.

In this part of Washington, 1 kilowatt of solar capacity creates about 1,000 kilowatt-hours of clean, green electricity each year, even when it is partly cloudy. So Mercer Island is currently producing about 2,250,000 kilowatt-hours annually. Since about 1/3 of Mercer Island's electricity (from PSE) is still created by burning coal, our solar energy helps prevent the pollution from over 1,764,000 pounds of coal annually.

Are you installing solar? Visit our simple solar power permitting page today.

Mercer Island is a Northwest Solar Community, working to promote solar energy and bring down the soft costs associated with installing rooftop solar electricity. This is part of a nationwide Department of Energy effort to make solar energy more accessible.