Alamo Colleges – Babafemi Adegbite – 2017

Goals

The Alamo Colleges District, a system of five community colleges in San Antonio, Texas, set a goal of reducing carbon emission 30% by 2020 and achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. Alamo Colleges District has implemented various initiatives like demand response, waste and water recycling and solar energy installation to meet its commitment; however, the consortium realized it needs to scale its solar projects. EDF Climate Corps fellow Babafemi Adegbite was hired to analyze the current solar energy portfolio, recommend future projects and develop a strategy for scaling solar projects across the campuses’ Climate Leadership commitments.

Solutions

Adegbite gathered all available information and documents on the current solar energy portfolio, interviewed facilities staff and visited project sites before conducting an economic analysis of the energy portfolio. After realizing the arrays had performance issues due to a lack of maintenance servicing, a call was scheduled for each array to be diagnosed and fixed. Adegbite recommended and began work on an operations and maintenance RFP for the current energy portfolio.

Adegbite then turned his attention to managing and analyzing a proposed solar installation at one of the college campus. After reviewing the construction documents and details of the project, he discovered some issues with the layout and design. A site walkthrough with the contractors, who validated the concerns and agreed to a redesign that will lead to savings worth thousands was arranged.  

Potential project sites for future rooftop solar estimated at 9.8 MW across the District were also identified. Adegbite suggested further analysis into carports and car canopies, adding another 1 -2 MW solar energy potential to the portfolio. He also recommended and worked on a competitive RFP process to improve the economic benefits of the events.

Potential Impact

The recommended solar projects to tackle in the short term have the potential to produce 1.7 million kWh of electricity and 800 MT of CO2e per year. Adegbite also gave the Colleges District a better understanding of the potential for on-site solar at their facilities, which will help Alamo Colleges District fast track its work to meet its carbon neutrality commitment.