The Pleasanton Unified School District in the San Francisco Bay Area has awarded Honeywell a unique solar energy project, one of the first of its kind for a K-12 school district in California. Under the agreement, Honeywell will install, own and maintain solar panels on seven district buildings, and sell the electricity the panels produce to the district at a price significantly below its current utility rate.
The solar technology is expected to supply 20 percent of the district’s electricity and save it an estimated $2.5 million in energy costs over the course of the 20-year contract. After the agreement expires, the school district can continue purchasing electricity from Honeywell, acquire ownership of the solar panels or explore other energy providers.
Honeywell has taken an innovative step to help a school district with an inflexible budget lower its energy costs without requiring it to make an up-front capital investment or handle ongoing maintenance.”
Uh — this also allows Honeywell to choose where and how it becomes a competitor with the local public utility monopoly.
I don’t want to scoff at saving taxpayer’s 2.5 million… But over the course of a 20 year contract?
That makes the effort seem more valuable than the savings…
Now, 250 million… That would be a lot of money… Or am I missing something here?
That 2.5 Million does seem low for a 20 year contract. Is the School district small? Also how much is this going to cost Honeywell to install? Is this Honeywell doing it for Good PR or Research or can this be a viable business model?
Give’s them a chance to screw around with and field test technology. it’s all good.
“I don’t want to scoff at saving taxpayer’s 2.5 million… But over the course of a 20 year contract?”
Thats 125k a year, basically for the school district doing nothing and assuming no risk. Add the bonus of the CO reduction and reducing the strain on the local utility grid.
Sign me up!
This is a good start – I dont know about other cities, but here in Seattle, the public schools are badly in need of funding – implementing this might give the school some “wiggle room”
Every day i think of how cool it would be if every roof in the state of Florida had a solar array on it, cranking electricity into the grid. Imagine all that clean power!!!
#4 – Well… You logic is unassailable 🙂
I wasn’t suggesting it was a bad idea, only that when people brag about savings on a 20 year scale, its usually bigger numbers they are bragging about.
On the other hand, that’s 125K that can be channeled toward other needs, like books or an arts program or even other energy efficiency programs to save yet more money…
125k this year feels like 125k. How much will 125k feel like (in todays dollars) in 20 years?
I’m not sure if I have the math right, but it looks like if we have 2% inflation each year the total income would feel like $2 million in today’s dollars. If we had 3% inflation it would feel like $1.84 million.
“125k this year feels like 125k. How much will 125k feel like (in todays dollars) in 20 years?”
Well, that’s a downer!
Not knocking the project, but why didn’t they try their pilot installations in areas known for more sunlight than the San Francisco metro area? it does make sense if the engineers are in the area anyway, but sunnier cities like Phoenix, Tucson, Las Vegas, Albuquerque, and El Paso would make more sense. More solar photons means more power.
#10, Maybe because they want to maximize the potential in areas without 300+ cloudless days a year.
I would expect Honeywell to be experimenting with different types of solar fixtures to find what works better under specific circumstances. This could include most potential under clouds, in rain, cleaning the surface, etc.