NM college spends $5 million on solar array to save $200,000 in utility bills

FILE: Solar technicians install solar panels on the roof of a house in Mission Viejo, California. (rEUTERS)

Santa Fe Community College has just unveiled a solar array that, it says, will save the college at least $200,000 a year on its utility bills.

But the array, funded by taxpayers in a 2010 bond election, will cost $5 million.

You don’t have to be a math major at the college to figure out it would take 25 years of $200,000 cost savings per year to reach the $5 million mark for the project to just break even.

So is the solar array a good deal?

SFCC interim president Randy Grissom thinks so.

First off, Grissom told New Mexico Watchdog the college expects to save more than $200,000 a year on utility bills.

Click for more from Watchdog.org.