The Essentia Blog

Bolthouse Farms, purveyours of smoothies and salad dressings at fine grocery stores anywhere, have gone solar in a big way.  They announced the completion today of a 1.9 megawatt solar array that will power their farms in Palmdale, California.  The array incorporates 10,300 Mitsubishi solar panels on a new ground-mounted system that follows the sun during the day for greater efficiency.

The farm’s switch from diesel to solar powered irrigation pumps improves air quality and reduces noise.  The new array will provide 80% of the power needs of the large-scale farm operation.

Solar energy is so popular in California, solar panels are being stolen.  Tom McCalmont, president of Regrid Power, was victim to one such burglary where they took $30,000 worth of panels from the roof of his solar energy business.  A homeowner, Glenda Hoffman, has fallen victim to three separate burglaries in which a total of 16 solar panels have been removed from the roof of her home - she now sleeps with a shotgun and a .22 just in case they come back.

Thieves then try to sell the panels on the internet - one such thief was not so lucky as detectives from the police department ended up being his customers after numerous $1500.00 panels were stolen from a California toll road.  He charged only $100.00 for the panels and when he showed up to deliver them he was led away in cuffs.  Authorities are now recommending that customers engrave their driver’s license number into their solar panels for easy identification.

The most energy inefficient building in the Vatican complex, the Paul VI Audience Hall, will be converted over completely to solar energy through the work of Thermovolt, a company that has donated all of the solar equipment.

The solar panels will provide enough energy to heat, cool, and light the hall. More than 1000 of them will be up on the roof of the hall when installation is complete.