Red Rock High School in Sedona, Arizona will soon be getting a 3,600-panel solar array, giving the high school – and the distinctly pro-environmental community that surrounds it – a huge shot of clean, “green” energy.
The project, announced by Sedona Unified School District Superintendent Michael Aylstock, outlines a ground-mounted array of solar panels as big as the school’s football field. With a nameplate rating of 820 kilowatts, the solar farm will reportedly be the third largest in the nation at a K-12 school. Given Arizona’s average 6.5 points of solar radiation (on a scale of 2.5 to 6.5 in the continental U.S.), and its 4,000 hours of sun per year, the solar installation can’t help but be a big benefit, in terms of electricity production.
Other large school solar systems include the 205-kilowatt array at Avon Old Farms School, which is the largest of any private school in Connecticut (and New England); a 412-kilowatt array at San Domenico School, the oldest independent Catholic school in California; a distributed solar array at San Jose Unified School District in California, with a total of 5.5 megawatts of power across 14 campuses; and the Athenian School in Danville, California, which has a 220-kilowatt solar system installed by REC Solar, Inc.
The Red Rock High School solar array tops them all, and its location on the 10-year-old campus – designed to blend with Sedona’s magnificent red sandstone monoliths and unique rock formations – is a fitting tribute to a community comprised largely of retirees who cherish the beauty of their community.
The panels, each nine feet high and 13 feet long and spaced about 7 to 8 yards apart, will be located along the west side of the ball fields and behind the high school along its boundary with U.S. Forest Service property, and will provide 67 percent of the power needed to run the school.
This is very good news for the area’s carbon footprint, as regional utility Arizona Public Service, or APS, delivers its electricity from a distinctly “brown” mix of 38 percent coal, 31 percent natural gas, 27 percent nuclear, and only four percent renewable or “new energy efficiency” (a feature that also included a Dec. 2009 rate increase).
The cost for the Red Rock High School solar array(s) will be $5.8 million, of which $1.8 million is being provided by APS as part of a renewable energy incentive program which offers production-based incentives via special funding under the utility’s Renewable Energy Incentive Program. Funding is limited to a total of $15 million of lifetime incentive commitments and is awarded on a first come, first served basis until gone.
APS is providing the incentives in order to meet Arizona’s renewable portfolio standard, which requires utilities operating in the state to derive 15 percent of their electric generation from renewables by 2025. APS, as the state’s largest and oldest electric utility, is under the eye of the Arizona Corporation Commission, the state’s utility regulator. APS is the largest subsidiary of Pinnacle Corporation.
The balance of costs for the solar array have already been provided by a school bond. Esthetic issues will be addressed via special landscaping, and the solar farm will be fenced with green or brown-painted chain link to keep out vandals. Construction is expected to begin in this spring.