The City of Palouse is a farming community just outside of Pullman, WA. It is also home to many of the people that work at Washington State University and Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories. The people in this community are very forward thinking as can be seen with the most recent construction of the town’s Community Center which boast a photo-voltaic solar array on its roof. When Apollo Solutions Group first approached the City about Washington State’s Energy Program, as well as the Energy and Solar Grants available to them, the City became very interested in exploring these options further.
After performing a Preliminary Energy Analysis it became very apparent that the City would be eligible for a Solar Grant. This made the project all the more attractive to the City as they made it known early on in the process that the project would have to be completely self-funding, meaning that the energy produced by the solar array would have to cover the payment of any loan the City would have to take on top of the Department of Commerce’s Energy Grant, and the utility rebate incentives.
Apollo was successful in applying for, and securing a solar grant on behalf of the City of Palouse. The City has entered into a net metering agreement with Avista Utilities. The 75 kW Fixed Solar Array will cover the entire energy consumption of Well Pump #3 and a significant portion of Well Pump #1.
