When a new community solar array flipped the switch in Rifle, Colo., last week, crowds cheered with surprise when they learned that the little oil and gas town already had almost 3 megawatts of solar powering parts of city operations.

“Nobody thinks Rifle would have solar,” said Mayor Keith Lambert. “It is usually a surprise to everybody.”

Rifle is at the heart of natural gas drilling and oil shale mining. It’s also home to some pockets of oil and has been a hub for uranium and coal mining in the past. The mineral-rich town of 9,000 on the western slope of the Colorado Rockies is known for its cowboys and its natural resources. It has never been known for its “greenness.”

But the town has a new wastewater treatment facility powered by 1.73 megawatts of solar panels and a new water intake facility outfitted with 600 kilowatts of power.

“The city has 2.3 megawatts of solar power at its disposal,” Lambert said.

And now it’s home to the largest community solar array in the country.

“It’s a pretty exciting endeavor, and we’re very glad to have it here in Rifle,” Lambert said of the Clean Energy Cooperative array.

There are other area initiatives to install solar on community facilities in Rifle, including the Garfield County Fairgrounds. And some homeowners have embraced the technology as well.

The western side of Colorado is incredibly sunny and the resource is readily available, Lambert said.

“We feel Rifle is perfectly situated to bridge the renewable energy industry with the extractive industry,” Lambert said.

The energy extraction business has long been a big part of Rifle’s economy. And that has led the community through some rather painful booms and busts. In the 1980s Shell Oil closed the gates on its oil shale production in Parachute, just a few miles down the road from Rifle, and put hundreds of people out of work with no notice.

“We want to make sure, some of us who have lived here a while and experienced this, that we have a diverse economy,” Lambert said. “We recognize that renewable energy is the wave of the future.”

Image courtesy of the Colorado Division of Wildlife.