Gary Farrell Vineyards & Winery

Winery Solar Electric Installation Project Profile

This large 193.2 kW solar power system demonstrates Gary Farrell’s pledge to reduce their energy consumption and enhance the environmental sustainability of its operations. Also looking to reduce operating costs, installing solar power will save them, on average, $64,000 annually in utility fees.

The sprawling solar power system is installed on multiple rooftops over the facility, consisting of 544 high-efficiency 355 watt solar panels and 5 inverters. The system will produce 253,624 kWh annually and any excess power they generate flows back into the local utility system greatly reducing the strain on the local power grid.

“Converting the winery to solar was a key component of the sustainable winery certification that Gary Farrell Winery recently received from the California Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance.  We are proud to support Sonoma County’s leadership of the sustainability movement in vineyard and winery operations. The wine business is an industry with such a close connection to the land, stewardship is a natural extension of that relationship. We are also very grateful to SolarCraft for their partnership on this initiative. They helped guide us through every step of the process, from design and permitting through installation, and obtaining permission to operate from PG&E, keeping everything on schedule while working around the harvest and some challenging weather conditions!”    -Mike Bellaran, Director of Finance at Gary Farrell

With a 25 year warranty and 40+ year design life on the major system components, this system will be positively affecting Gary Farrell’s bottom line for decades to come.

During the life of the system, nearly 400 metric tons of carbon dioxide generated by Gary Farrell’s operations will be eliminated. This impact is equivalent to removing air pollution produced by over 445,000 miles of driving annually or the pollutants removed by 212 acres of trees in one year.

Read more commercial case studies