SolarWorld has supplied the solar panels for four systems of about 1 MW each for the Eastern Municipal Water District (EMWD) in California’s Riverside County.
The four installations, the last of which is to be commissioned in coming days, are located at EMWD’s desalter facility in Menifee and regional wastewater-treatment facilities in San Jacinto, Moreno Valley and Perris Valley. Composed of 72-cell SolarWorld solar panels mounted on NEXTracker single-axis trackers, the systems will enable the facilities to offset peak power demand.
“EMWD’s board of directors has adopted the strategic objective to provide service in a cost-effective and environmentally responsible manner,” says EMWD General Manager Paul Jones. “By investing in solar energy at many of our larger facilities, we are minimizing our carbon footprint and ensuring we stabilize costs for our ratepayers both now and well into the future.”
Stronghold Engineering Inc., based in Riverside, Calif., was EMWD’s selected design-build contractor on the four projects. Parsons Corp., based in Pasadena, Calif., supported the agency’s field engineering division on the suite of 1 MW solar renewable energy projects.
SolarWorld says it has supplied systems for the state’s municipal and agricultural water organizations for more than a decade – among them, Semitropic Water Storage District in Wasco (2005), Desert Water Agency in Palm Springs (2005), El Dorado Irrigation District in Placerville (2006) and Cucamonga Valley Water District in Rancho Cucamonga (2006).
