Vacaville expands its solar power capabilities

Vacaville expands its solar power capabilities
By Ian Thompson, DAILY REPUBLIC
October 21st, 2009

VACAVILLE — The town already noted for its efforts to turn sunshine into electricity is getting even more solar.

Novartis' Vacaville biopharmaceutical facility plans to dedicate a one-megawatt solar array on Wednesday that is expected to fill at least 20 percent of its Vacaville facility's power needs.

“We are seeing an incredible benefit, especially during the day. It is performing great,” Novartis spokesman Joe Culley said of the array that was completed last month.

This follows less than two weeks after PG&E showed off its new two-megawatt Vaca-Dixon Solar Station on Midway Road that will be completed by December.

These additions are expected to boost the Vacaville area's total solar power output past the 8 megawatt mark.

The solar power company Solon of Tucson, Ariz., started building PG&E's solar station in August. So far, all of the support structures and 25 percent of the solar panels are up.

PG&E will then start more, larger projects once it gets the go-ahead from the state Public Utilities Commission, said Bill Gittler, PG&E's technical lead in power generation in fossil and renewable energy.

The Vaca-Dixon Solar Station is a pilot project for a five-year program that aims to develop 500 megawatts of solar power throughout Northern and Central California.

PG&E plans to build facilities to generate 250 megawatts and collect another 250 megawatts from facilities built and owned by private developers.

Once up and running by 2015, the solar network is expected to supply more than 1,000 gigawatt hours of power a year, enough to power about 150,000 homes, meeting 1.3 percent of PG&E's demands.

“It will give us more clean, renewable power,” Gittler said.

The solar power will initially be more expensive “but there is a lot of work underway to streamline our costs,” Gittler said.

“Hopefully, the cost will continue to go down,” Gittler said.

Vacaville was recognized by the Northern California Energy Association in July for ranking second among medium-sized cities for the total amount of wattage generated by solar panels in town.

This comes from the city's solar panels at City Hall and its park-and-ride lots, as well as large solar arrays put up by Mariani Packing Company, ALZA Corporation and the State Compensation Insurance Fund.

The City Hall solar array “not only takes care of all our (electric vehicle) refueling needs, but lowers our utility bill by $6,500 a year,” said Ed Huestis, the city's electric vehicle program manager.

The city also plans to put more powerful electric vehicle rechargers in city park-and-ride lots that will be capable of repowering an electric vehicle within half an hour, Huestis said.

See the complete story at the Daily Republic online.