Green Options

Wastewater treatment plants are vast expanses of bubbling tanks that sprawl around the outskirts (and sometimes the inskirts) of cities and towns.  All that acreage can be put to another use and one solar energy company, SunPower Corp. is pointing the way.  The company recently completed work on a one-megawatt solar power system at the West Riverside Wastewater Treatment Plant in Corona, California.

The new solar power system will generate about 25 percent of the plant’s energy needs, and that’s significant in terms of a more energy efficient and  sustainable future.  Wastewater treatment plants are packed with industrial-sized aerators, pumps, and other energy-gobbling machines, so getting them off the conventional energy grid would be a major step forward.

Governor Schwarzenegger just gave solar power a boost in California, especially for relatively small-scale solar generators.

Taking notes from Europe, perhaps, Schwarzenegger signed legislation for a “feed-in tariff” earlier this week that requires Calfornia utilities buy solar power from relatively small generators and at higher than market-value prices.