Solar Systems Debut in Boulder County Schools

October 3rd, 2012
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This week 14 Colorado schools turned on the power to 5,000 solar panels.

Boulder Valley School District (BVSD) flipped the switch Monday on 1.4 MW of green energy generated from more than 5,000 solar panels installed on 14 different schools across the district. The ceremony was held Monday at Foothill Elementary School in Boulder.

The 14-school project may be one of the largest undertaken by a school district in the country, at least a district the size as Boulder Valley. This increases the number of buildings in the district with solar arrays to 30, half of the buildings in the system.

The panels were installed by SolarCity, a national provider of clean energy services. SolarCity owns the panels and installed them at no cost to the School District. The District entered into a 20-year Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with the company to buy the electricity from SolarCity. In turn, SolarCity will provide full maintenance on the system.

This project provides environmental benefits to the region, eliminating over 110 million pounds of annual carbon dioxide emissions, which is the equivalent of taking roughly 300 cars off Colorado’s roads each year. MORE …

Filed Under: ARCHIVES • Feature Articles • Projects • Renewable Energy

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  1. Comment by Wendy Towber on 10 October 2012:

    “…installed them at no cost to the School District.” No cost, really? Typically, SolarCity will FINANCE the UP FRONT cost of the panels, but the customer has the cost imbedded in their electricity rate that they pay to SolarCity who essentially becomes their utility.

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