Napa Valley College has completed the largest solar energy project in Napa County.

In 2006, the dedication ceremony for the college’s substantial field of solar panels drew luminaries including Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, Napa Mayor Jill Techel and many others.

The project cost is $7.5 million, with $4 million from the college’s Measure N bond funds approved by voters and $3.5 million from PG&E incentives. The $3,496,350 rebate is the second largest single solar rebate ever awarded by PG&E.

   The 1.2 megawatt solar photovoltaic system provides power to meet 40 percent of campus electricity needs. The solar array covers 6.5 acres with 5,600 solar tracking panels. Built by PowerLight Corporation, it generates electricity during the day equivalent to what is needed to power 1,200 homes.

   PowerLight’s PowerTracker technology tracks the sun across the sky to maximize energy generation, with the panels turning to face the sun throughout the day. The solar power system’s prime energy output coincides with periods of highest electric demand, enabling the college to substantially reduce utility peak period energy charges. This tracking system allows the solar array to produce up to 20 percent more energy than a stationary solar array of the same size.

By avoiding the purchase of fossil-fuel generated electricity, the Napa Valley College solar electric system spares the environment from tons of harmful emissions, such as nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide, which are major contributors to smog, acid rain and global warming. Over the 30-year life of the photovoltaic system, it is estimated that the solar generated electricity will reduce emissions of carbon dioxide by 13,800 tons. These emissions reductions are equivalent to planting over 130 acres of trees, removing 2,700 cars from California’s highways, or not driving 35 million miles.

   Even underneath the panels, which are located adjacent to Kennedy Park on the southwest side of campus, visitors can see another environmentally-friendly technology at work. “Woolly weeders,” or hungry sheep, keep the grass and weeds beneath the panels short enough to be fire-safe.

   The land is in the floodplain and not suitable for other campus construction.

In addition to fueling the college’s energy needs, it has other benefits.

Physics and environmental studies classes can see solar energy in action. In fact, students — including students from the college’s Mathematics, Engineering, Science Achievement Program — attended the dedication and threw the “switch” to turn on the project.

   NVC President Dr. Chris McCarthy said, “We are delighted that solar power is being harnessed here at Napa Valley College. Our college is committed to utilizing state-of the art technologies that lower costs, enhance operation, and help us achieve our sustainability goals.”

   The college is on the move with other energy-saving and environmental initiatives.

   Construction on the college’s central chiller plant, a more energy-efficient means of cooling buildings than the current systems, is scheduled for completion in the fall of 2007.

   Meanwhile, fish and wildlife are returning to a waterway at the north end of campus.

   Historic Tulucay Creek, released from the underground pipe that carried it for decades, now flows gently past the college ballfields it helps to drain in wet weather.

   Belted kingfishers, egrets and black-crowned night herons are again catching their meals in the college pond, which had shriveled to a shallow, weed-choked pool before it was dredged and restored.

   Before voters passed Measure N, which allots bond funds to specific campus-renovation projects, the pond “was becoming a meadow,” said assistant campus planner Carollee Cattolica.

“It was about 18 inches deep, completely choked with parrot feather,” an invasive aquarium plant, Cattolica said. “It was heavily silted and full of decaying plant matter. You couldn’t see water.”

   Now dredged to a depth that discourages weeds, the pond can again serve as a detention basin for stormwater as well as a haven for native plants and animals.