Solar panels are being added this summer to campuses within the Santa Barbara Unified School District and to Goleta’s City Hall.
The project to add solar panels to the parking lot of Dos Pueblos High School began June 6. Construction is expected to continue until about Aug. 12, school district spokesman Nick Masuda said.
Fourteen schools will be getting solar panels installed, which means the majority of schools in the district will have solar panels with the exception of Harding Elementary School, Las Flores preschool, McKinley Elementary School and Washington Elementary School, Masuda said.
The solar panels at Dos Pueblos High will generate 1,126.4 kilowatts per hour (kWh), which is enough to power 93% of the school’s energy use, according to Masuda. Additionally, the school will have a supplementary battery system that will be added to the panels for additional resiliency.
The entire solar project costs for all sites in the school district was about $3 million up front, including about $1.2 million in contingency funds, he said.
The power generated from the panels is part of a power purchase agreement through which the school district will purchase the energy from the owner of the panels, Engie North America, for a flat rate of $0.1326 per kWh for the next 28 years. Engie North America is responsible for the maintenance of the panels throughout the 28-year agreement. The company anticipates a savings of $7.78 million over the term of the PPA.
School board members previously discussed the major solar project in 2020.
Construction for the Goleta City Hall project began in late May and will be completed as soon as next week, according to Kelly Hoover, community relations manager for the city.
The solar panel system will produce about 316,000 kWh of energy, which will power about 99% of City Hall, not including the unoccupied tenant space in the building, she said.
Additionally, the city has the option to expand the system with panels on the roof and battery storage to improve City Hall’s resiliency in the case of a power outage. The system is wired to be micro-grid ready and additionally includes wiring for electric vehicle charging stations.
The projected savings for the city over the 25-year lifespan of the project is estimated at $270,325, according to Hoover.
This project also is funded through a power purchase agreement. Goleta is using a different company, called Symbiont Energy, which is funding the cost of installation, as well as be responsible for operation and maintenance of the system as performance risk, component replacement and end-of-term removal.
Upon completion of the project, the city will lend the project $309,770 at a 2.2% rate of return over a 20-year term.
Hoover said solar panels also will be added to Goleta’s Fire Station 10 and the Goleta Train Depot.
— Noozhawk staff writer Grace Kitayama can be reached at gkitayama@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.