Palo Alto brings its first Feed-In Tariff solar project online
The new solar canopy is the first of four to be installed on municipal parking garages in Palo Alto, for a total of 1.3 megawatts.
This week, the City of Palo Alto will begin producing clean local energy on one of its municipal parking garages.
The new 240 kilowatt (kW) solar canopy installation, located at the Bryant Street garage in downtown Palo Alto, is owned and operated by Komuna Energy, and all the electricity produced will be sold to the City of Palo Alto Utilities through Palo Alto CLEAN, a Feed-In Tariff the Clean Coalition helped establish in 2013. In addition to the solar canopy, Komuna Energy also installed a number of Level-2 electric vehicle (EV) chargers–with more to come.
The solar canopy at the Bryant Street garage is the first of four solar canopies to be installed on municipal parking garages in Palo Alto, which will bring a total of 1.3 megawatts online. Palo Alto already has a carbon neutral electricity supply and is actively pursuing the electrification of transportation to reduce its carbon footprint.
The Clean Coalition was engaged to design the Request For Proposal that ultimately selected Komuna Energy and created the lease agreement that administers their relationship with the City of Palo Alto.Under this agreement, Palo Alto’s EV ambitions will be significantly advanced, as itincludes staging for nearly 100 Level-2 charging ports. The Bryant Street garage will contain six ports that are fully installed, with electrical upgrades and wiring already in place for an additional 18.
Komuna Energy’s next project will be a 419 kW PV system on Webster Street and it is scheduled to come online in late July. More updates will follow in the coming months.
