It's amazing what parking cover can do. As a volunteer city employee, I don't get to park in the garage; I get to battle it out with the other poor unfortunate souls under the US 95/515. Sometimes you get shade, sometimes you don't. And when you don't...well, prepare to become intimately aware of how turkeys must feel during Thanksgiving.

 

The city has great news, though, for the Stupak Community Center. With the funds from the stimulus act, the city will build 34 covered, solar powered carports. Officials estimate it will generate 54,000 kilowatt-hours of energy savings annually, enough to power 4.5 homes. This lot is the first in what the city hopes to be enough solar powered car ports to power 170 homes, with the added benefit of reducing 949 tons of carbon monoxide.

 

Funding for these projects will come from Energy Efficiency Community Block Grant funds (EECBG), Green Building Special Revenue Fund, utility rebates, Community Development Block Grant Recovery (CDBG-R) and New Clean Renewable Energy Bonds.

 

Today, Department of Housing and Urban Development Deputy Secretary Ron Sims will visit the Stupak Center to break ground on this project.

 

Although the covered parking is reserved for City of Las Vegas departments, there are numerous locales around the valley that could use the solar energy generating shade: UNLV parking lots (I'm looking at you, free lot), the Las Vegas Valley Water District (it's shame that the Springs Preserve gets the cool shade and employees have to tote umbrellas), strip malls more than a mile wide, tops of parking garages (just because you got there last doesn't mean you deserve to be roasted), and the DMV.