Scottsdale District's Solar Savings Hit $300,000 Yearly

AZCentral

Scottsdale was among the first school districts in the state to put solar panels on campus roofs, in 2009 at Coronado High School and the Desert Mountain High School/Mountainside Middle School campus.

Since then, panels have been installed at Chaparral, Arcadia and Saguaro high schools, and Copper Ridge School. This summer, panels are being added to Desert Canyon Middle School.

Salt River Project recently donated a small rooftop array to Tavan Elementary School, and that 13.2-kilowatt project just went online last month.

The rooftop projects are done on a solar-power-purchase agreement, in which a third party, SolarCity, installs and maintains the panels, collecting incentive subsidies from the government. The district buys the power from SolarCity at a set rate, protecting the district from rate fluctuations imposed by utilities.