The California State University system is really shining with solar.

The CSU Bakersfield Campus celebrated the installation of its new 1.2-megawatt solar parking canopy on Wednesday.

The canopy will provide covered parking and more than 1.6 million kilowatt hours of clean electric power to the campus each year, according to a press release from the university.

The installation is the eighth one at CSU campuses around California under a Solar Power Service Agreement with SunEdison, a solar company that will own and maintain the solar array while selling power back to the university under a 20-year contract.

SunEdison has installed 4.3 megawatts of solar power at CSU campuses across the state, according to a press release.

“This is just a midsize installation,” said Rob Meszaros, director of public affairs and communications for CSU Bakersfield.

Fifteen of the university system’s 23 campuses will have solar installations within the next two years, Meszaros said.

It all started in 2007 when Dr. Horace Mitchell, university president at the Bakersfield campus, attended a conference about how higher education institutions can become more sustainable.

At the same time, CSU created a goal, on a larger scale, to reduce its carbon footprint, Meszaros said. The university chancellor reached out to the different campuses and asked for ideas.

In that goal-setting and brainstorming era, the university system decided to seek out solar companies like SunEdison, Meszaros said.

CSU Bakersfield set a goal of getting 15 percent of its energy from renewable sources, according to a press release.

The installation that went online Wednesday will produce enough energy to provide 25 to 30 percent of the campus’s energy needs, Meszaros said.

Producing 1.2 megawatts of power, the parking canopy will supply the grid with enough energy to power 3,100 single-family homes, according to the press release.

The campus administration worked with SunEdison to find the right location and arrangement for the solar array and decided to create parking canopies, Meszaros said.

“It just made the most sense,” he said. “We have a lot of commuters and a lot of parking area around the campus. We could just plop these in and cover them with solar. Nothing had to be reconfigured to make it work.”

Image courtesy of California State University Bakersfield.