Solar Cells Info

Agreement could save schools $2.5 million in electricity costs during 20-year contract
By Eric Louie /CONTRA COSTA TIMES
Pleasanton, Jan. 10, 2007
Source: Contracosta Times
http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/16425310.htm

A company will place solar panels at seven Pleasanton schools and then sell the energy back to the school district, as part of an agreement both sides see as an emerging trend. Sandra Lepley, assistant superintendent of business, said the agreement with New Jersey-based Honeywell, will save the district $2.5 million in electricity costs during the 20-year contract. The school board unanimously approved the agreement in June, with the panels to be installed by October.

Lepley said the panels will be at Foothill High, all three middle schools and at Hearst, Lydiksen and Walnut Grove elementary schools. Under the agreement, Honeywell owns the panels. The district will pay a reduced rate — 11.75 cents per kilowatt in the first year with the price going up 4.5 percent each year after that, Lepley said. After the contract ends, the district can acquire the panels, which she said have a 25-year life span, continue buying the electricity or have them taken out.

The panels will generate about 20 percent of the district’s electricity needs, said Ron Blagus, a Honeywell director of marketing. There will be no surplus electricity left over. He said alternative energy in the public sector has been growing, with more government mandates and incentives. In 2005, for example, Cathedral City bought solar panels with his company that generate electricity that feeds back into the local utility. That Southern California city then gets credits, bringing their costs down, he said.

Since then, Blagus said, federal tax incentives have become available. Those are not available to tax-exempt entities such as school districts and other governments, he said, which will make agreements such as the one in Pleasanton more common. His company has a similar project planned with the Southern California city of Perris.

Lepley said Chevron had approached the district with a similar idea a few years ago. The district has been participating in a number of environmental programs, such as piloting the Go Green Initiative, which led to Walnut Grove Elementary getting a generator for garden irrigation from Pacific Gas and Electric Co.

The district wanted to explore other companies, with Chevron, Honeywell and another company submitting proposals, she said. The district chose Honeywell. Blagus could not give a cost estimate on what the panels would cost had the district bought them, saying each project has unique aspects. The panels are custom built. Lepley said the district did not estimate what it would cost to buy the panels because it would be too expensive.

Lepley, who said the district will be passing on $1.58 million in state grants it will receive for the project to Honeywell, said such government incentives are making such projects feasible.  “There are a lot of opportunities for this,” she said. The district is working with Honeywell and the nonprofit group National Energy Educational Development Project to create a curriculum that teaches students about the solar panels and other energy-saving measures.