Oct 5 2010
Las Cruces Public School district (LCPS) in New Medico has unveiled its plans to install solar panels over the roofs of 40 school buildings to generate solar energy to meet nearly 50% of its energy requirements. The solar panels will produce an average of 4,000 kWh of clean solar energy.
The school management has signed an official authorizing accord with Alternative Industry Resources, a local company to install a solar power producing system. According to the signed accord A.I.R. will finance the system, own it and operate the system. A.I.R. is expected to invest around $24 million for the project and will be able to recover the investment in a period of 10 years. The project will receive 30% funding from federal government stimulus and about 35% of investment cost can be covered by the sales of energy credits to the utility companies. In the present case El Paso Electric a local utility company has agreed to buy the renewable energy credits. The accord will also allow the school management to purchase power from A.I.R. at the current prevailing rate of 15.6 cents per kWh for a period of 20 years without any escalation in the pricing. The accord also includes a clause where in LCPS can buy the entire solar installation at 1% of the total investment of $24 million after a period of 10 years. A.I.R. is looking forward to completing about 5% of the project before the end of this year. Officials of the company are making regular visits to the LCPS buildings to choose the best locations such as rooftop, parking slots and play grounds for installing the solar panels.
Oswaldo Galarza, CEO of A.I.R., said that the company has signed the agreement under a state law that allows third party companies to take the role of public utility companies to invest solar structures over privately owned buildings maintain and operate it and collect charges for the power produced. Mike Cook, Coordinator of Communications in LCPS, said that the project has kindled the interest of the students in knowing more about renewable energy and saving energy. He added that the project offers good learning opportunities for the students while saving costs on power usage for the schools.