Alvarado Street Bakery Goes Solar

Alvarado Street Bakery, in Petaluma, will use solar energy to power its ovens to bake over 40,000 loaves of bread every day. The bakery being run as a cooperative by its 120 workers has opted for solar installation unanimously and agreed to share the expenditure of $1.8 million among them.

The 404 kW solar power system installed over the 1.5 acre roof of its building incorporates over 1,700 solar panels and the power generated by the solar panels will meet nearly 40%of the power requirement of the bakery. The company though was willing to go for solar options years back has waited for three years to move into its own building to carry out the solar installation. The cost of solar panels that has come down substantially over the years also helped in hastening the installation process.

The solar installation for the bakery was carried out by Stellar Energy, a Rohnert Park-based company, and it used only the components that were manufactured in the USA. The bakery has a proposal to set up an interactive kiosk at its lobby to allow the visitors to monitor the power generation capability of the solar panels and the energy saved by them.