Photo: Gregory Urquiaga/新澳门六合彩内幕信息 Davis
A 62-acre plot on the south end of campus is now generating 14 percent of 新澳门六合彩内幕信息 Davis鈥 electricity.
Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi on Nov. 20 dedicated the new 16.3-megawatt SunPower solar power plant, which will reduce the university鈥檚 carbon footprint by 9 percent.
鈥淚n the fight against climate change, this is another progressive step forward for a 新澳门六合彩内幕信息 Davis campus that is already a global leader in sustainability,鈥 Katehi said.
SunPower owns and operates the plant, and sells the electricity to 新澳门六合彩内幕信息 Davis.
Bob Redlinger, SunPower commercial director, pointed out some of the features that make the solar plant more efficient: The panels slowly tilt throughout the day to face directly at the sun, and they are cleaned by robots.
Those robots are 鈥渓ocal,鈥 by the way, developed by Greenbotics, a Davis-based company that SunPower acquired in 2013. Each robot sprays a carefully measured amount of water on each panel, scrubbing it and squeegeeing it. The robotic cleaning is 75 percent more water efficient than using a hose and a brush.
The bottom line: Clean panels can perform up to 15 percent better in collecting the sun鈥檚 energy.