By Khalida Sarwari
Students at the Athenian School in Danville, along with their parents and Danville Mayor Newell Arnerich will gather today to celebrate the inauguration of the school’s new ‘A’-shaped solar array system perched on a hillside.
Arnerich is scheduled to formally flick the switch on a new installation that will provide 50 percent of the school’s electricity needs, according to Judyth Collin, associate director of communications and public relations at the school.
Collin said, “We wanted a project that was big enough to power the substantial power of our electrical needs.”
The installation, a 220-kilowatt system consisting of 1300 photovoltaic panels and covering 30,000 square feet is as big as a baseball field and is among the top 10 largest nonprofit solar installations in California, Collin said.
The construction of the project was not without challenges as a soil test at the initial start of construction confirmed that the hillside was not suitable for installation, which led the project team to drill down about 15 feet into the earth and pour concrete piers into the hole in order to stabilize the solar array, Collin said.
In the long term, however, the installation is expected to save the school about $250,000 or 15 percent of annual energy costs on average over the next 20 years.
The celebration will take place at 2:45 p.m. at the school, located at 2100 Mt. Diablo Scenic Blvd. and will also include representatives from Congressman McNerney’s office as well as officials from Tioga Energy, REC Solar and Mitsubishi Electric, all of whom played a part in the construction of the project.