SPEAKER: Cecilia Villaseñor Johnson, President, Sun Pacific Solar Energy (SunPacificSolar.net) spoke to us about solar energy projects.

Cecilia has been president of Sun Pacific Solar Energy since 2007. She provided us with a slide show highlighting various solar energy projects that they have installed. She also gave us information regarding the quality of different solar panels, their features and their manufacturers.

Recently our club visited the new Pritzlaff Conservation Center at the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden. The solar installation at that site was designed and constructed by Sun Pacific. The installation is meant to supply the majority, if not all of the energy used at the new conservation center.

The installation consists of two types of panels. The ones that are visible, are over the patio.

Notice how the light comes through these panels. These are Lumos Panels, and while they are not as efficient as the solid panels, they do provide both shelter and light, as well as energy.

The rooftop of the Pritzloff Conservation Center is covered by SUNPOWER^® panels.

The Pritzloff Conservation Center was built after the Jesusita Fire demolished the Gaines House on the site where the Pritzloff Conservation Center now stands.

Cecilia then went on to show and describe numerous solar installations that Sun Pacific constructed. Some are connected to the grid, others are stand-alone. The stand-alone installations are perfect for remote locations such as remote water pumps, although they only pump when the sun shines, they typically have a storage facility for either the water that's being pumped, or the electricty in the form of batteries.

Sun Pacific projects include: Bishop Diego High School,

also multiple ground mountings,

residential sites, spanish tile mountings,

and even solar panels that were mounted within a reservoir in order to protect from fires.

Cecilia also explained some of the logic around solar panel installations, such as when the grid goes down, panels connected to the grid must also go offline in order to prevent potential injury to repairmen working on the grid.

Then she spoke about the quality of panels, with SUNPOWER^® being the clearly superior panel, with the highest efficiency, and a 25-year warranty. These are the best-in-class panels both in terms of efficiency and durability. She also informed us of the increase in efficiency where the same size array from 30 years ago, generated 75 watts, it will now generate 360 watts.

The Activity Day meeting of October 13^th was a work party at Erik Thorlaksson's house.

Ten club members attended the work party and we repotted 220 starts for our garden sale. We also raised Hampton Bell's old greenhouse which Erik inherited.

Erik informed us of

• new management at San Marcos growers
• he has applied for a Parks & Recreation Commissioner position. This commission has six positions, three of which are currently open.
• plans to revive both the plant exchange and the table decorations at our monthly meetings.

The meeting date of the fourth Thursday is Thanksgiving Day this month. So there will be no meeting. We encourage members to participate in the Garden Tour of SBCC. Information is at the top of the COMPOST and R.S.V.P. is to Erik Thorlaksson at (805) 705-5103.