On August 30, 2010 NV State Highway 447 is proclaimed to be America’s Solar Highway, with more watts of distributed solar per mile, than anywhere in the USA! That’s 451kW along 75 miles of highway, 17 watts per mile!

Each year, Black Rock Solar returns to our source of our inspiration: Black Rock City. We eagerly look forward to our stay on the playa as an opportunity to connect with our supporters, inspire others, and educate about our mission and our projects.

August 30-September 5
District Everywhere
6:30 and Esplanade
Black Rock City, NV

Once again, the outreach groups of Burning Man (Burners Without Borders, The Black Rock Arts Foundation, Black Rock Solar and The Regional Network) have teamed up to create a unified presence on the playa: District Everywhere!

District Everywhere is housed under one large pavilion (which might look familiar… it’s one of the pavilions that surrounded the Man in 2007 and 2008!) This year, our space will take on the appearance of a large world map, with continents cut out of wood, set up at table height. With the assistance of our World Domination Team, guests will create miniature sculptural representations or flags to represent their off-playa projects and endeavors.

District Everywhere is located at the intersection of the Center Camp outer ring, 6:30, and the Esplanade.

Events
Together, the outreach groups will also host interactive activities, art projects, events and gatherings, all geared toward kindling ideas and generating momentum for off-playa, after-Burning Man outreach efforts. Join us for daily BurnSide Chats, hosted lectures, salons and discussions about art, community and culture, from 1:00-4:00pm, Monday through Saturday.

MONDAY:
Join all of the outreach groups for an opening reception, ‘Party Everywhere,’ from 4:30-6:30pm.

TUESDAY:
Join Black Rock Solar for an afternoon of playa-inspired solar sessions from 1:00-4:00pm.

• 1-2pm Dr. Ge-Off, Mayor of the Alternative Energy Zone, will talk about how easy it is to solarize your camp and get off the grid at Black Rock City.
• 2-3pm  Meet the Black Rock Solar Board of Directors, Construction Crew, and Staff. Learn about our upcoming projects and celebrate the installation of our millionth watt of solar power.
• 3-4pm Calamity Charles,Stanford scientist andBRC airport
  volunteer, will lead a solar shower discussion and group brainstorm about optimizing gray water evaporation on playa.

Special Interactive Piece: A SHOW-N-TELL with EMBER’s Gray-B-Gon wind-powered evapotron

Hey, do you have a solar power art car or some other piece of renewable energy innovation? Bring it over to 6:30 and Esplanade during our Tuesday event!  Most of our crew is already on the playa and the rest of us are heading out Friday–so we’ll see you there!

We’ve got some remarkable news to share–thanks to the support we received at our annual Solarstice II event ( special thanks to John Keating for a generous donation to cover an unexpected cost overrun!) , we’ve just been able to complete installation of a 30kW solar array gifted to the North Lyon County Fire Department in Fernley, NV.  Each year, this project will save their fire department over $6,000 in energy bills.

Solar array being installed in Fernley last month

And that, friends, means that as of today Black Rock Solar has installed 1,006,267 watts AC of solar power–otherwise known as 1 megawatt.  The money saved over the next 25 years from these projects tops $6,000,000, along with thousands of tons of carbon offset. It’s the largest amount of solar power installed by a non-profit nationwide.

This milestone shows that it is possible to make the world a better place, even taking a million tiny steps, and we want to take this opportunity to thank each of you for helping us get here.  When we began almost three years ago, we had the brash goal of “taking the town of Gerlach (NV) off the grid” — figuring if we’re going to do something about climate change, we had to start somewhere, and that was as good a place as any.  The people at the power company told us politely we were nuts, but worked with us anyway.

Well, as of now, the amount of solar we’ve installed offsets the entire energy use of the town of Gerlach, so in a round about way we did get there after all.

Here are some recent images we had taken of some of our projects this year:

Food Bank of Northern Nevada: 150kW

Pyramid Lake High School: 135kW

Pioneer Center for the Performing Arts: 20kW

This month also marks another milestone of a different kind for Black Rock Solar.  As you may remember, we got our start following the “Green Man” theme at Burning Man 2007. Tom Price worked as the Environmental Manager for that event and was part of the rockstar team that went on to create Black Rock Solar.  After almost three years at the helm, Tom will be passing the reins over this fall to a new Executive Director, as he goes on to other opportunities in the renewable energy industry. If you think someone would be interested in his job ( which, btw, is pretty awesome), please point them at the job description posted here.