Solar Project Focus: Cupertino Electric's PV Schools

Solar Project Focus: Cupertino Electric’s PV Schools

Back to school—but this time with a district full of solar panels

Eric Wesoff August 16, 2011

Eric Wesoff

Editor-at-Large
Greentech Media

Eric Wesoff is Editor-at-Large at Greentech Media. Prior to joining GTM, Eric Wesoff founded Sage Marketing Partners in 2000 to provide sales and marketing-consulting services to venture-capital firms and their portfolio companies in the alternative energy and telecommunications sectors. Mr. Wesoff has become a well-known, respected authority and speaker in these fields.

His expertise covers solar power, fuel cells, biofuels and advanced batteries. His strengths are in market research and analysis, business development and due diligence for investors. He frequently consults for energy startups and Silicon Valley's premier venture capitalists.

We regularly profile the gritty details of large solar projects from SunPower, First Solar, NRG and others. They are notable by virtue of their sheer massive scale.

But we strive to bring attention to other notable solar projects, as well -- even if they're not quite 500 megawatts in size.

Cupertino Electric is constructing solar systems on 10 different sites for the San Bruno Park School District during the three-month summer break. It's a modest program by utility standards, totaling 837 kilowatts across the 10 sites, but it provides a large percentage of the school district's electrical usage, uses a variety of mounting schemes like ground-mount and roof-mount, and the project has to be completed before the kids come back to school in a few weeks.

C. David Myers, president of building efficiency for Johnson Controls, said in a NYT article, “If we tested schools in efficient use of energy, many of them wouldn’t get a passing grade." The San Bruno project addresses a small piece of that failing grade.

I spoke with Earl Martin, the project executive for Cupertino Electric, a 1400-employee, privately held electrical contractor, about the program. There are eight roof-mount sites, one-ground mount site, and one covered walkway and carport installation -- using a total of more than 6,000 Canadian Solar 235-watt c-Si solar panels. Part of San Bruno's contract with Cupertino Electric includes a 10-year performance guarantee.

The project was financed as part of a $40 million bond measure -- so the School District owns the panels.

That's in contrast to other mechanisms for financing solar on schools.

Tioga Energy provides power purchase agreements to get solar on solar rooftops and uses the Athenian School as an example. Tioga Energy and their EPC partner REC Solar engineered, installed, financed, own and operate a PV system that supplies half of that school’s electrical needs at a fixed electrical power cost utilizing 1,300 solar panels.