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Woodland Park Zoo, the Phinney Neighborhood Association (PNA) and Seattle City Light are partnering on a new Community Solar project!

The project, which goes live in the summer of 2014, will produce approximately 75 kilowatts of energy from solar panels installed on building roofs at the zoo and PNA.

That makes this community solar project the largest in Washington State to date!

As part of the Community Solar project, new solar panels will be installed on the roofs of the zoo’s Rain Forest Food Pavilion and the Commissary building, generating about 16kW and 44kW of solar power, respectively.

Solar energy isn’t new for the zoo—in 2011, solar panels were installed on our Historic Carousel, providing enough renewable energy to power the carousel all year long.

The remaining 15kwh are to be installed at the PNA building.

City Light customers will be able to participate in the program by purchasing energy from the solar-modules and will then receive annual credits for the amount of energy generated by their units.

Customer investment will end in July 2020 when ownership of the solar panels is transferred to the zoo and PNA.