New solar panels installed above De Anza’s parking lots A and B during the summer have doubled De Anza’s solar energy output.

The panels will create 1.2 megawats and offset 2.3 million kilowata hours of energy usage each year once it is live, said Bill Roeder, instructor for Environmental Studies and Energy Management. “It will be functional in the next few weeks.”

For more than a decade, De Anza College has been focusing on achieving sustainability. Roeder said De Anza now produces over 2.5 megawatts of solar energy power, and figures do not include the proposed systems at the Mediated Learning Center or the Kirsch Center Solar Education and Demonstration Lab.

The Kirsch Center provides students with education about solar energy and photovoltaic technologies.  

“Each of the campus renewable energy systems will be monitored and displayed on LCD screens in the Campus Center,” said Roeder. “Students will be able to see how much power we are creating and how much energy usage we are offsetting at various times of the day.”

With current results in solar power harvesting, De Anza is on track to become the second completely solar-powered college after Butte College. 

Just outside Chico, Butte College currently generates 102 percent of its energy needs through solar power. As a result, Butte College won the National Campus Sustainability Leadership Award Oct. 17.