Politics & Government

Santa Maria Solar Project Complete; Customers to Save $500,000

The green project will save Ramona water customers more than $500,000 in the next 20 years.

The year-long Santa Maria Solar Project at Ramona's Santa Maria Reclamation Plant is complete, David Barnum told Patch Monday.

Barnum said the green project has taken a year to complete, from conception to finish. But the completion of the solar panel construction took only about four months.

"Construction started in June and we ended last week," John Woody, senior director of project development for Enfinity America Corporation, the company who owns the system, told Patch. "It provides 80 percent of electrical usage for the plant."

Find out what's happening in Ramonawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Woody told Patch that Enfinity co-developed the project with Siliken USA, who built the project using their solar modules. The solar project consists of 2,156 modules and is owned and operated by Enfinity, who will sell power to Ramona through a 20-year Power Purchase Agreement (PPA).

Barnum said this project was a public/private partnership that did not require any investment from Ramona Municipal Water District’s customers and will save them more than $500,000 in the next 20 years while producing green electricity in Ramona.

Find out what's happening in Ramonawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

"It's a great little project," Barnum said. "We hired predominantly local subcontractors."

The site takes up about 1.3 acres on the ground of the Santa Maria Reclamation Plant in Ramona, according to Woody.

Barnum said the project was designed so that it would not be visible to the surrounding community in an effort to accommodate the community of Ramona, RMWD’s customers and the homeowners in the immediate area.

The estimated annual power production of the solar project is 918,000 kWh.


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