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Here comes the sun, or another kind of juice.

For some time, we have been trying to figure out ways to reduce our impact on the environment. On the vineyard side, we have received a “Fish-Friendly Farming” and the Napa Valley Vintners “Napa Green Land” certification for our Brown Ranch vineyard, in addition to our devotion to owl and bluebird boxes and compost applications. In the winery, we have replaced our big energy-hog incandescent bulbs with bright efficient compact fluorescents. On September 17th, however, the effort on the winery side reached a whole new level. Visitors here will notice that a new support structure has risen at the back of the winery carrying almost 7,000 square feet of photo-voltaic panels. We had to give up a little bit of vineyard real estate to fit it in.

We are very proud that we have “gone solar”. Working with our consultant Gopal Shanker of Récolte Energy, we enrolled in our electric utility’s incentive program for solar electricity installations for commercial and industrial customers. With Gopal’s help, we were able to configure a system and select a contractor — Sunlight Electric of San Francisco. After lots of hard work by everyone involved (all the way up to the California Public Utilities Commission), the system went live in October 2007. It can generate 85 kilowatts of electricity when the sun is right overhead, and will generate over 120,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity per year. That is enough electricity to “take us off the grid” when our demand is the highest — afternoons during bottling season and harvest. (We still use PG&E’s electrons at night and when the sun don’t shine.)

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