Bay Area School District Nets $3 Million Yearly Savings with Solar Installation

  • By Kevin Hudson
  • 03/07/13

A 51-school solar power system has been completed for the Mount Diablo Unified School District in the East San Francisco Bay area, resulting in an expected $3 million per year in energy cost savings for the district.

The 15-month project was managed by electrical contractor Del Monte Electric, which provided the entire electrical installation at the school sites from the AC tie in at the utility point of connection, through the underground electrical distribution, photo voltaic equipment installation, photovoltaic (PV) panel installation, and all other associated electrical work, according to a company release.

The installation included more than 28,000 PV panels on carports and rooftops throughout the district and more than 150 miles of wire. The system is expected to generate 12 megawatts of PV power each year.

The solar installation is intended to be a boon to both the district and the environment, with the system expected to cover 90 percent of the district's current energy expenditures and the Environmental Protection Agency projecting avoidance of 400,000 tons of emissions over the next 30 years thanks to the project.

The funding source for the $56 million project came from voter-approved Clean Renewable Energy Bonds.

Del Monte Electric was founded in 1938 and specializes in public and private projects that have aggressive schedules and require complex installations. For this project the company managed a construction crew of more than 100 people and trained the workforce on solar theory and installation practices.

Mount Diablo is one of the largest school districts in the state of California with more than 56 school sites and programs serving more than 36,000 K-12 students. The district covers 150 square miles of the suburban East San Francisco Bay Area, including the cities of Concord, Pleasant Hill, Clayton, and portions of Walnut Creek and Martinez, as well as unincorporated areas Lafayette, Pacheco, and Bay Point.

About the Author

Kevin Hudson is a freelance journalist based in Portland, Oregon. He can be reached at [email protected].

Featured

  • Google Classroom tools

    Google Announces Classroom Updates, New Tools for Chromebooks

    Google has introduced a variety of features across its products for education, announced recently at the 2025 BETT ed tech event in London. Among the additions are enhancements to Google Classroom and new tools for Chromebooks, "designed to help address the diverse needs of students around the world," Google said in a blog post.

  • Rebind platform

    Grant Program to Give Free Access to AI-Powered Reading Platform

    E-reading publishing company Rebind has announced a new "Classics in the Classroom" grant program for United States high school and college educators, providing free access to the company's AI-powered reading platform for the Fall 2025 term.

  • group of elementary school students designing video games on computers in a modern classroom with a teacher, depicted in a geometric and abstract style

    Using Video Game Design to Teach Literacy Skills

    The Max Schoenfeld School, a public school in the Bronx serving one of the poorest communities in the nation, is taking an innovative approach to improving student literacy.

  • computer with a red warning icon on its screen, surrounded by digital grids, glowing neural network patterns, and a holographic brain

    Report Highlights Security Concerns of Open Source AI

    In these days of rampant ransomware and other cybersecurity exploits, security is paramount to both proprietary and open source AI approaches — and here the open source movement might be susceptible to some inherent drawbacks, such as use of possibly insecure code from unknown sources.