Black Rock Solar

School Receives Largest Green Christmas Gift in History

by Kenny Luna, North Babylon, NY on 12.19.07

That’s right folks, kids on the Gerlach school campus in Nevada received what probably serves as the largest green Christmas gift in history. Receiving a 90KW solar system for their school that will be pumping out clean energy long after they’ve graduated, and quite possibly when their own kids show up to sing Christmas carols one day.

The panels themselves are actually expected to generate up to 162,000 kilowatt hours of electricity annually for the next 25 years. With the total energy savings over that time period expected to surpass $480,000. And the approximately $20,000 per year savings will directly benefit the students and faculty at the school, according to the people running the very rural Washoe County School District which serves a grand total of 83 students grades PreK-12.

Make no mistake about it, that’s a huge amount of money each year for such a small school district to put to good use.

And ultimately it’s all a result of a unique partnership between the folks at Burning Man, MMA Renewable Ventures, Sierra Pacific Power, and Black Rock Solar. A relatively young non-profit who’s founder Tom Price points out can turn every dollar donated into seven dollars worth of renewable energy. (Read the rest here)

This story keeps on truckin–here’s a link to the NY Times today.

And to a business magazine in Baltimore 

And to Yahoo Finance 

From the local NPR affiliate.

The following are links to stories regarding the event yesterday. Four television stations covered it very well (the online version don’t do the actual stories justice), KKOH AM780 Radio did too (they are typically critics of Burning Man) and the Reno Gazette Journal had a teaser on page 1 followed by a story by Bill O’Driscoll on the business page.
http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071219/BIZ/712190430/1071/BIZ

http://www.kolotv.com/home/headlines/12600081.html

http://www.krnv.com/Global/story.asp?S=7513827

http://www.ktvn.com/Global/story.asp?S=7516227

http://www.solarindustrymag.com/e107_plugins/content/content_lt.php?content.779

MMA Renewable Ventures CEO Matt Cheney, and Gerlach Principal Carol Kaufman plug together power cord, lighting Christmas tree powered by new 90KW solar array.

Installation and dedication event photos available here. 

Reno Gazette Journal

 Laughing Squid

KREN

Las Vegas Sun