Rifle Gives Solar Power a Shot
The small but growing city of Rifle is nestled into the western slope of the Rocky Mountains. In a land booming with natural gas exploration and production, and despite the allure of what you might call “easy money,” this Colorado town is choosing diversity; choosing “easy money” that is renewable; choosing solar energy. Rifle’s mayor and its roughly 8,000 residents, in a show of forward thinking, are installing a total of 2.3 MW of solar power. The two separate arrays will run a pump system for diverting water from the nearby Colorado River and Rifle’s wastewater treatment plant. And that’s not the end of it…
On 130 acres of public land, Rifle will explore a variety of renewable resources, which will power a good portion of the town’s infrastructure. The two solar arrays will occupy 12 acres of the aforementioned land and stand as the beginning of what the city has dubbed their “Energy Innovation Center.” In addition to the solar arrays, which are financed, designed, and installed by SunEdison, Rifle plans to explore biofuels and geothermal power. Rifle has also received $50,000 in federal money to investigate biomass as viable option.
For Rifle, the implementation of solar power and other clean energy sources is not just about energy diversity, it is also about economy. They see the inherent benefit of renewable energy for providing high-quality jobs and a boon for the city’s economy as a whole. This long-term vision is especially admirable at a time when Garfield County, which houses Rifle, is Colorado’s leader in natural gas permits. It would be easy to rest on their laurels and ride the “natural gas train” until it ran out of gas. Yet Rifle, setting an example for other towns in Garfield County and across the nation, sees beyond the temporary nature of the oil and gas industry and into energy sources that will last as long as the Earth.
This is not to say that Rifle is shunning the oil and gas industry. On the contrary, the natural gas boom itself has provided jobs and economy to the flourishing community, which has grown by roughly 20 percent since the 2001 census. “We’re looking at marrying together extractive energy sources and renewable,” says Mayor Keith Lambert.
The smaller of the two solar systems already provides about 90 percent of the necessary power for the pumps that gather water from the Colorado River. In two sections, the next array is expected to supply at least 60 percent of the water treatment facility’s power needs. That solar system will be fully installed by the end of the year.
Get free estimates from certified solar contractors in Colorado, from Adams to Arapahoe: Colorado Solar Energy.
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Posted on October 28th in Solar News by Dan.
October 30th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
[...] Rifle Gives Solar Power a Shot Rifle, CO’s mayor and its roughly 8,000 residents, in a show of forward thinking, are installing a total of 2.3 MW of solar power. [...]
March 15th, 2009 at 9:38 pm
Wow! Thank you! I always wanted to write in my site something like that. Can I take part of your post to my blog?