Stanford University to go solar

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Built for Stanford by the northern Californian solar company SunPower Corp., the plant’s construction began in January 2016. The solar panels have now been installed, and work is proceeding on wiring and completing the system. When finished, the plant will draw on more than 150,000 solar panels and produce a peak 67 megawatts of power.

While several Stanford building complexes already feature solar panels, under the Stanford Energy System Innovations (SESI), which includes a heat recovery system completed last year for the heating and cooling of campus buildings, 16 additional campus buildings are being outfitted with solar panels and the work is expected to be complete later this fall, so that they provide an additional five megawatts of power for the school.

We have been engaged in a major effort to make Stanford one of the most energy-efficient universities in the world, and this expansion of our solar resources will make a dramatic difference,” Joseph Stagner, executive director of sustainability and energy management at Stanford said on Sunday.

“Clean, renewable energy will become the dominant part of Stanford’s energy mix, and its proportion in that mix will continue to grow over time.”

The solar plant and the campus rooftop panels will produce 53 per cent of Stanford’s electricity. The university will purchase the remaining 47 per cent from the California electricity grid, of which 25 per cent currently comes from renewable power sources including solar, wind and geothermal, and 50 per cent will be renewable by 2030 under state law.

In total, once its solar projects are complete by year’s end, Stanford said it would be getting 65 per cent of its power from renewable sources.