San Antonio School District Powers New School Year with Additional 407.16kW of Solar

Students and staff at Alamo Heights Independent School District (AHISD) in San Antonio, TX are getting back to school with an additional 407.16kW of solar energy brought to them by the team at PCI Solar. Howard Elementary School, Edward T Robbins School, Cambridge Elementary School, Plant Services, and Alamo Heights Junior High are hosting a variety of solar systems, from rooftop to ground mount. The systems provide a firsthand teaching point for students on 21st century energy solutions.

AHISD began their solar journey in 2011, when they issued the first of two competitive RFPs to design and build a total of 7 turnkey, grid-tied solar systems, totaling over 1MW to date, on various school facilities. The PCI Solar team worked with AHISD and community leaders to overcome a variety of challenges with bringing solar to these schools:

• Consideration of local utility CPS Energy’s interconnection requirements
• Installation of both roof and ground mount systems
• Compliance with local zoning ordinances and codes
• Ongoing school and community activities and associated construction restrictions
• Close collaboration with AHISD staff, facility management, and community stakeholders
• A tight construction schedule

For the first solar procurement in 2011, the Performance Contracting Inc. (PCI) team (formerly with another company) designed and built two solar projects totaling 626kw DC on Alamo Heights Junior High School and Woodridge Elementary School. For the second procurement in 2013, PCI Solar designed and built five projects totaling 407.16kw DC.

PCI’s full in-house solar engineering, design, and project management team provided the solar and construction experience and resources required to overcome the above challenges on time, on budget and to AHISD specifications. AHISD valued the PCI Solar team’s experience in executing solar projects in San Antonio and for other school districts, along with the company’s outstanding safety rating – a crucial factor when operating heavy, energized equipment on an active educational campus . PCI’s bonding capacity of $75 million per project and $750 million in aggregate was also an important factor for working with a local government entity.

The systems are connected to and operate in parallel with the CPS grid. AHISD funded the projects through bonds, with PCI Solar obtaining critical CPS rebates and Feed-In-Tariffs to help make the projects make good financial sense, in addition to being a great educational tool for students and teachers.

About PCI Solar

PCI Solar is a division of Performance Contracting Group, a specialty building contractor with over $1 Billion in annual revenues. In addition to city governments, the PCI Solar team serves commercial customers such as Holt Caterpillar and federal government customers including the U.S. Navy.

To save with solar and take advantage of this incentive, call PCI Solar now at 512-443-0535, or learn by visiting our site.