MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- It sounds almost counterintuitive, but the Pettit National Ice Center at State Fair Park is now using the power of the sun to keep their ice frozen.

On Friday, May 1, they unveiled their new solar power system. It involves an array of solar panels on the flat roof of their big white building. It takes a lot of energy to keep the Pettit ice cold year-round, and they tell us these solar panels could offset 20% of the center's annual energy use.

We're told the system actually got a bit of a test run after a damaging windstorm on Monday, April 27.

"We were completely off grid for most of Monday," General Manager Paul Golomski said. "So we were using no power from the utility. The sun was 100% powering the facility with two ice rinks, all of our lighting, all of our HVAC."

They tell us the new solar power system will generate so much power each year that if you wanted to, you could use it to Zamboni their ice 80,000 times.