Kyocera yesterday unveiled a demonstration
project it hopes will help take parking lots to new places by including stylized
solar arrays that shade cars while cleanly producing electricity.
The company's so-called Solar Grove is an array of modernistic stanchions --
"solar trees" in Kyocera's lingo -- supporting about 1,600
photovoltaic modules over an employee parking lot adjacent to its North American
headquarters at Balboa Avenue and state Route 163.
Beyond providing 186 covered parking places and a small fraction of the energy
the company uses at its headquarters, Kyocera is marketing Solar Groves as a
part of an effort to double revenue this year from its solar energy products.
The diversified manufacturer of electronic components sought to enhance the
appearance of the arrays by emphasizing a tree-like aspect, with each solar
canopy supported by a single stanchion but shading six vehicles.
Kyocera declined to specify the cost of the new solar array, noting that the
facility is a prototype. But the company said about 40 percent of the cost was
covered by California rebates for solar projects and that it would benefit from
federal and state tax credits.
All told, the company believes Solar Groves will prove attractive in the
burgeoning solar market. "The economic viability of PV systems like this
represents a milestone for businesses throughout California," said Steve
Hill, president of Kyocera Solar Inc.
By avoiding the need to burn natural gas or other fossil fuels for the power it
produces, Kyocera said the array will avoid the annual release of nearly 340,000
pounds of carbon dioxide, a suspected contributor to global warming, as well as
hundreds of pounds of pollutants.
The new photovoltaic arrays are tilted slightly to maximize solar exposure and
have a capacity of about 235 kilowatts, enough to power about 68 typical local
homes. The company last year began manufacturing solar panels at a facility in
Tijuana and hopes to double production this year.
According to the San Diego Regional Energy Office, the Kyocera solar array is
the largest privately owned such installation in the county and the third
largest overall, behind solar arrays at the Del Mar Fairgrounds and one built
for the Navy on North Island.
Irene Stillings, executive director of the energy office, said the $5 million in
solar rebates the office had for San Diego this year has already been exhausted.
"Activity (in solar) is enormous," Stillings said. The rebate funding
available, she said, "is not enough."
The City of San Diego has also set a goal of 50 megawatts of renewable energy
capacity -- from solar and other sources -- by 2013. For context, peak
summertime demand for SDG&E hovers around 4,000 megawatts. (A megawatt
equals 1,000 kilowatts.)
The county overall has about 12 megawatts of solar capacity now -- enough to
power about 12,000 homes -- and another 8 megawatts in the pipeline. But
Stillings noted that solar construction could soon run into a key limit, namely
a cap on electricity that San Diego Gas & Electric is required to buy back
from owners of solar arrays.
The buybacks are a key component in making solar power viable because
photovoltaics produce surplus power during the hottest periods when power is
most in demand by the local utility.
State Sen. Chris Kehoe, who attended yesterday's ribbon cutting at the Kyocera
facility, is sponsoring a bill to raise the cap on buybacks.
Kyocera's Kearny Mesa facility manufactures ceramic packages for computer chips
and is among the larger electricity consumers in the region.
To protect its manufacturing process, the company made the headquarters energy
self-sufficient in the late 1980s, with the bulk of its power provided by a
natural gas-fired generator supplemented by solar power, which provides about 2
percent of its electricity.
The new Solar Grove has allowed Kyocera to retire a smaller rooftop photovoltaic
system, which was donated to a hospital in Mexico, according to a company
spokesman.
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Source: Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News