SunPower Corp. (Nasdaq: SPWRA, SPWRB) has secured the largest-ever contract to supply solar power to a school district.
The company will design, install and maintain 11.2 megawatts (MW) of solar capacity for the Mount Diablo Unified School District in California.
The district expects to save $192 million in electricity costs over the 30-year life of the solar systems.
"Motivated by the promise of significant cost savings, the Mount Diablo Unified School District began investigating solar energy over 18 months ago," says School Board Vice President Gary Eberhart. "We are very excited to team with SunPower to bring the largest K-12 solar project in the country to fruition. We are delivering substantial savings to our general fund, which will preserve financial resources and help our schools maintain an emphasis on academic performance. Saving our schools’ money, while reducing emissions, is the right thing to do for our students and the environment."
The solar systems by SunPower, to be completed in phases through early 2012, will be shade structures installed in school parking lots and hard court areas. The systems will be financed through Clean Renewable Energy Bonds (CREBs) secured by the district under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. CREBs are beneficial to school districts because most of the interest is paid by the federal government. The interest-rate paid by the district is about 1.7%.
SunPower has more than 550 large scale solar power systems in operation or under contract globally. In the last year in California, educational customers have included the Los Angeles Unified School District, San Ramon Valley Unified School District, University of California, Merced, Bakersfield College and Mendocino College.
Johnson Controls (NYSE: JCI) in November signed a contract to build solar systems in 41 school districts in Utah.
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