Imperial Valley Desert Museum

The Imperial Valley Desert Museum has joined the Solar Energy Revolution by having a 37,644 WAC solar array installed on its roof by Sullivan Solar Power. "One of the best resources we have in the Imperial Valley today is sunshine. It seemed like a win-win situation to develop a solar project at the Imperial Valley Desert Museum to produce long-term electricity, and at the same time, use the rooftop solar array to educate the public," said Neal V. Hitch, Director of the Imperial Valley Desert Museum. The Desert Museum's average electric bill has been $1,000 per month since opening in 2011, with huge spikes last summer due to air conditioning. The solar array on the museum's roof top consists of 180 Bosch Solar 245-watt photovoltaic modules and two Power-One inverters, and it assists with offsetting roughly 60 percent of the Museum's bill. The solar array also ensures that there aren't drastic spikes in future electric bills. As part of the compensation mitigation for impacts to cultural resources from the Sunrise Powerlink, San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) funded this solar project. Sullivan Solar Power also installed a Locus monitoring display of the solar array's production. The monitoring display will be exhibited for museum guests to learn about the production of renewable energy from the solar panels. The anticipated annual energy production is 68,179 kWh, which will be broken down by day, month year and the lifetime of the system on the monitoring site display. "Our experience with Sullivan Solar Power has been fantastic - the team that we worked with has been absolutely great," said Hitch, "I had thought that solar was new and untested, where in fact everything I received from Sullivan Solar Power and have read has informed me that this is not the way of the future, it's today."