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Solar Panels at Data Center to Save State Millions

The energy produced on a typical summer day from the "green" structure, which covers 316 parking spaces, can reach 1 megawatt of power per hour — enough to power 164 homes, according to CDT.

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The California Department of Technology and the Department of General Services are touting the energy efficiency and resulting savings from a solar canopy in the parking lot of the state's main data center in Rancho Cordova.

The solar panels, which feed the data center, have been in place for about a year, according to a blog post on CDT's website.

“Since its completion in September 2018, the 76,000-square-foot solar canopy, located at CDT’s Gold Camp Data Center facility in Rancho Cordova, has generated more than 1 million kilowatt hours of electricity and is on track to double that amount annually,” says the blog post. “The energy generation will account for about 10 percent of the facility’s annual electrical demand while reducing nearly 10 tons of greenhouse gas emissions.”

The energy produced on a typical summer day from the “green” structure, which covers 316 parking spaces, can reach 1 megawatt of power per hour — enough to power 164 homes, according to CDT.

“The canopy is projected to save CDT in the neighborhood of $2.3 million over the 25-year term of the agreement,” CDT says in the post.