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With lots of sunshine, Arizona seems like a natural place for solar power generation, but it has lagged behind other states. All of this is set to change when Arizona acquires the largest solar-powered community in the continental U.S.
A coalition composed of developer Actus Lend Lease, solar system designer SolarCity, Tucson Electric Power (TEP), and financing parties National Bank of Arizona and U.S. Bancorp Community Development Corporation (USBCDC) are working to create one of the nation’s largest distributed, community-wide solar power systems at Soaring Heights Communities at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base.
The systems will produce more than 10 million kilowatt hours of electricity annually—sufficient to provide an estimated 75% of the residents’ energy use next year—and could eventually offset 100% of Soaring Heights Communities’ electricity use. Soaring Heights will also be Arizona’s largest solar-powered community. The complete installation is expected to include six megawatts of total solar capacity in a combination of a ground-mounted photovoltaic (PV) system and rooftop solar systems that will be installed on approximately 900 residences.
National Bank of Arizona will own the 45,000 panel ground-mounted system, which accounts for more than 3.3 megawatts of solar capacity. The balance of the system will consist of 36,000 more panels in the rooftop arrays. The project will increase Arizona’s current solar capacity by more than 15%. Collectively, the installation is expected to offset more than 570 million pounds of carbon dioxide over its lifetime, the equivalent of taking approximately 50,000 cars off the road for a year, or planting more than 300,000 trees.
"We're excited about this project. We hope it will serve as an inspiration to developers and homeowners alike," said Joe Salkowski, a spokesman for Tucson Electric Power told the Arizona Daily Star.
The Arizona Corporation Commission has directed TEP to cut its use of coal-fired power and increase its use of renewable energy sources by 15 percent by 2025. The Soaring Heights project will help TEP meet that goal. TEP will provide incentives through its customer-funded SunShare program to reduce the long-term cost of Soaring Heights Communities’ photovoltaic installation. Work is due to be completed next year.
Soaring Heights Communities will also be one of the first solar-powered communities on an Air Force Base in the U.S. Actus Lend Lease is currently developing one of the world’s largest solar powered communities at its Army Hawaii Family Housing complex.
“We are very excited about the Soaring Heights Communities project because it allows us to leverage our background and expertise in renewable energy initiatives as they relate to community development,” said Dale Connor, Actus Lend Lease managing director. “We look forward to working closely with our partners and the Department of Defense to set a standard for sustainable living here in Arizona and throughout the country.”
Starting earlier this month, SolarCity began installing 1,000 PV modules per day on previously vacant land near Soaring Heights Communities. Homes in the community have been selected for solar installations based on their specific location and suitability for solar panels. Most of the homes selected for solar system installations will be new and built to the rigorous energy efficiency standards of TEP’s Guarantee Home Program; some are existing homes.
“Through the SunShare incentives that make this project possible, every TEP customer will be invested in the success of this remarkable new solar-powered community,” said David Hutchens, vice president of energy efficiency and resource planning for TEP and its parent company,UniSource Energy Corporation (NYSE:UNS). “This project will help shrink the carbon footprint of Tucson’s largest military base while setting a new standard for distributed solar power systems.”
SolarCity will outfit solar systems with its SolarGuard monitoring systems to measure solar electricity production, and to compare the performance of the ground-mounted arrays against the rooftop arrays. The monitors will inform project partners about how the arrays might interact with the smart grid of the future.
“Soaring Heights Communities is truly a solar city, and our largest
installation to date,” said SolarCity CEO Lyndon Rive. “We expect this
project to be a springboard for additional clean power development in
Arizona, one of the best locations for solar in the world.”
SolarCity is a national leader in solar power system design, financing,
installation, monitoring and related services. It offers a number of
financing options to make it possible for homeowners and businesses to
switch to solar power for less money than they currently pay for
electricity.
Alison
Pruitt is a freelance writer/editor living near Washington DC. She has
written about a variety of issues, including education, healthcare, IT,
the arts, and energy/environment -- and has worked with the U.S.
Department of Energy. She has a B.A. from Oberlin College and a Ph.D.
in English Literature from Rutgers University.
