WHEN:           Tuesday, September 27, 11am

WHERE:         City of Santa Fe Transit Division, 2931 Rufina Street

Local Business, Local Workforce, Local Electricity

The City of Santa Fe, Positive Energy, the Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce and Youthworks!, will electrify the local economy by turning on the new photovoltaic system at the City’s Transit Division.

Santa Fe, NM, Tuesday, September 27 at 11:00am:The 165KW system was installed by Positive Energy, a Santa Fe based solar company, member of the Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce and New Mexico’s leading installer of solar panels.  This local business utilized a local workforce for the job, including Douglas Rael, who trained with the company through the Youthworks! Green Collar Jobs Training Program (a City of Santa Fe Economic Development program).

 The project was funded through RSBFunds, a green finance company, delivering renewable energy to governmental organizations. RSBFunds is an L3C which unlike a conventional LLC (limited liability corporation) is a low-profit organization whose primary goals are charitable,

 Positive Energy sourced the equipment through SunPower Corporation based in Silicon Valley California.

In addition to the local business and local workforce, this project will produce local electricity to power roughly 45% of the Transit Division’s energy needs.  It will produce over 270,000 kWhs per year which will offset the equivalent of 50 homes.   Most of the energy use at the Transit Division is for the compression of natural gas, which is used to power all of the city buses, thus this makes a green local transportation system even greener. 

When the system is activated on Tuesday it will reduce the City of Santa Fe government’s carbon footprint by nearly 1%.  This project takes the City of Santa Fe one step closer to achieving its greenhouse gas reduction goals, which is to reduce city government’s energy use to pre 1990 levels.  Also, it will offset over 6000 tons of greenhouse gasses over the next 20 years and save over 135,000 gallons of water each year by not producing electricity through fossil fuels. 

It will save the City approximately $2,500 per year in energy costs though as the cost of electricity goes up the City will recognize greater savings.

Santa Fe New Mexican Article