Six schools in the Porterville Unified School District in California are having SunPower install 3.7 MW of solar electric systems.
The systems are expected to reduce the district’s electricity costs by $44 million over the next 25 years, SunPower said. SunPower is installing ground-mounted solar arrays as well as solar shade structures in the school parking lots. The district’s systems were financed through Qualified School Construction Bonds, which allows them to own the systems and receive the full benefit of the energy cost savings and incentive payments. PUSD’s solar power systems will avoid nearly 120,000 tons of CO2 emissions over the next 30 years, the equivalent of removing about 20,000 cars from California’s roads, according to estimates from the EPA.