Green goals
Borrego Solar Systems, Inc. The University of California, San Diego, recently unveiled a comprehensive, campuswide sustainable energy program designed to produce 29 million kilowatt hours of green energy annually. Part of the university’s robust plan called for a large solar electric system to be installed on several buildings.
The university chose to work with Borrego Solar Systems, Inc. to install the photovoltaic array. The 1.2-megawatt system consists of 5,790 Kyocera KD205 solar modules mounted on the Price Center, the Gilman parking structure and other buildings across the 1,200-acre campus. It will produce about 1.5 million kilowatt hours of green energy per year, contributing to the university’s overall sustainable energy goals.
To finance the $9 million cost of the solar system, the university worked with Solar Power Partners to develop a customized power purchase agreement that would meet its long-term budgetary requirements. As the owner of the system, Solar Power Partners will sell all of the electricity produced by the system to the university. This arrangement enables the university to access solar-generated electricity without incurring the capital or long-term operational costs to procure and run the system.
When complete, UC San Diego’s green energy program, which also includes biogas fuel cells and wind energy, will produce enough electricity to power more than 4,500 homes. Its program will offset about 10,500 tons of carbon emissions, which is the equivalent of removing 1,500 cars from the road every year.
Mobile cleaning unit
Hydro Systems. The ICS 8900 mobile integrated cleaning system provides several green benefits. The rechargeable, battery-powered system is an affordable, self-contained, portable cleaning system that uses correctly dosed cleaning chemicals that are applied by spray nozzle using low-flow/low-pressure technology. Its unique flow design uses only one-half gallon of cleaning solution per minute, eliminating the need for wet/dry-vac recovery and the handling of contaminated water, while reducing the slip-and-fall risk at the same time.
