wiredinUSA August 2013

Fruit farm turns to solar

HMC Farms, a large grower, shipper and packer of tree fruit and table grapes, is investing in a 10-acre solar photovoltaic farm. The 2.2MW solar system will cover 390,000ft 2 of ground space and will enable HMC to significantly hedge against rising electric utility charges on twocold storageandpackagingmeters. An additional 70kW solar carport will be added to supplement HMC’s energy use at the main office building on the property. HMC Farms selected Cenergy Power for the project, based on Cenergy’s expertise in engineering and building large commercial and utility solar projects. The ground-mounted solar and carport systems have been designed to reliably produce an annual 3.4 million kilowatt hours of energy, which will

reduce the plant’s energy needs by around 68 percent. “We believe that economically sound sustainability initiatives make tremendous business sense and we’re excited to move forward with Cenergy Power on our large solar project,” said Michael Toms, chief operating officer of HMC Farms. “In addition to the strong financial benefits, we feel great about the environmental attributes associated with the solar system. According to data from Environmental Protection Agency, the clean energy generated by our solar farm will be equivalent to the carbon sequestered by 2,000 acres of forests annually.”

wiredInUSA - August 2013

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