Green Mountain Energy Company Presents Dallas Children’s Theater with $50,000 Check to Fund Theater’s First Solar Array

 

 

Friday, 03 September 2010

 

Solar system will be 16.2 kilowatts; believed to be first array to help power a North Texas performing arts center 

 

 

 

DALLAS – The Dallas Children’s Theater at the Rosewood Center for Family Arts and Austin-based Green Mountain Energy Company, today announced plans for the Theater’s first solar array. Green Mountain presented the DCT with a check for $50,000 to fund the new 16.2 kilowatt (kW) solar panel system.

 

The array will help reduce DCT’s energy use and carbon footprint, as well as educate children and parents attending the theater about the benefits of solar energy. The solar photovoltaic (PV) system will be installed on the roof of the Rosewood Center and it is believed to be the first one to help power a performing arts center in Dallas. Dallas Children’s Theater is located at 5938 Skillman Street, Dallas 75231.

 

“Green Mountain Energy Company is especially pleased and proud to donate the solar array system to the Dallas Children’s Theater, an organization that’s dedicated to inspiring young people,” said Paul Markovich, President of Residential Services, Green Mountain Energy Company. “Green Mountain has been serving customers throughout the greater metropolitan Dallas-area since 2002. Donating solar systems like this one helps us give back to the communities where our customers live, work, shop and play, while supporting our mission to change the way power is made.”

 

Green Mountain funded DCT’s new solar array through its Big Texas Sun Club®, a unique program in which Green Mountain’s Texas customers can choose to support solar energy installations in Texas by contributing an additional $5 on their monthly Green Mountain Energy® electricity bill (for information, visit https://www.greenmountainenergysunclub.com/about/). This will be the 24th solar project built in Texas thanks to the Big Texas Sun Club. With this installation, Green Mountain’s Big Texas Sun Club will be responsible for creating over 223 kW of new solar energy capacity in Texas since 2002.

 

“We are indebted to Green Mountain Energy for this investment in DCT and for strengthening our green initiatives,” says DCT Board President Julie K. Hersh. “We knew DCT was playing an important role in conserving resources when we retrofitted the old Don Carter bowling alley into our beautiful new 58,000 sq ft Rosewood Center for Family Arts.”

 

“I am particularly excited to have the opportunity to educate children on the importance of renewable sources of energy,” says Executive Artistic Director Robyn Flatt, who co-founded DCT 27 years ago.  She emphasizes the importance of starting young in introducing new concepts like sustainable living and encouraging participation in the arts.  DCT and Green Mountain are developing educational signage to help DCT’s youngest audience members appreciate the magnitude of “going green.”

 

The Green Mountain Energy® Solar at Dallas Children’s Theater is expected to produce more than 21,000 kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity per year by converting sunlight into pollution-free electricity. It will be over 1,100 square feet and built with 60 large solar panels and will offset 27,800 pounds of carbon dioxide (CO2) each year. That’s the equivalent of not driving over 30,000 miles annually, or 127 road trips from Dallas to Houston.

 

An informative sign about the array and information about solar energy will be placed inside the theater to help educate patrons on solar energy and its importance. A monitoring web site will also be linked to the array to display real-time energy output data that anyone with Internet access can view.

 

The solar panels will be installed by Alternative Power Solutions. This will be APS’s third solar array installation for Green Mountain and the Big Texas Sun Club. Construction on the 16.2 kW solar system will start this week and is expected to be completed by late September.

 

 

Dallas Children’s Theater

Rated by TIME Magazine as one of the top 5 theaters in the nation performing for youth, Dallas Children’s Theater is a professional theater serving more than 270,000 young people and their families through its 11 main stage productions, national touring company, and education and outreach programs. As the only major organization in Dallas focusing solely on youth and family theater, DCT builds bridges of understanding between generations and cultures, instilling an early appreciation of literature, art and the performing arts in tomorrow’s artists and patrons.

 

 

Green Mountain Energy Company

Green Mountain, the nation’s leading competitive retail provider of cleaner energy and carbon offset solutions, was founded in 1997 “to change the way power is made.” The company is the longest serving green power marketer in the U.S. and in 2009 was ranked the “Highest in Business Customer Satisfaction with Retail Electric Service” by J.D. Power and Associates1. Green Mountain offers consumers and businesses the choice of clean electricity products from renewable sources such as wind and water, as well as a variety of carbon offset products. Green Mountain customers have collectively helped avoid over 11.3 billion pounds of CO2 emissions. For more information, visit GreenMountain.com.

 

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1Green Mountain Energy Company received the highest numerical score among business electric service retailers in Texas in the proprietary J.D. Power and Associates 2009 Texas Business Retail Electric Provider Satisfaction StudySM. Study based on responses from 2,231 businesses measuring 7 retailers and measures opinions of businesses with their electric service provider. Proprietary study results are based on experiences and perceptions of consumers surveyed May-June and September-October 2009. Your experiences may vary. Visit jdpower.com.