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A new solar panel system on the University of Colorado Boulder’s East Campus is now operational, generating clean electricity for the campus.
The solar array is expected to generate about 1.4 million kilowatt hours of electricity each year — offsetting roughly 1% of CU Boulder’s total electricity use and saving an estimated $120,000 annually in energy costs, according to a release.
The 1.1-megawatt ground-mounted solar array is on a 2-acre site east of Lot 560 on East Campus. The University of Colorado Board of Regents approved the $7.8 million solar array project in June 2024, and crews began construction in April 2025.
“This project is another example of how CU Boulder continues to put campus climate action into practice through investments in our infrastructure,” Chris Ewing, vice chancellor for infrastructure and resilience, said in the release. “Through our ongoing campus sustainability efforts, we’re aligning investments toward meeting our climate action goals with delivering resilient infrastructure that will serve the campus for decades to come.”
CU Boulder now has about 3.5 megawatts of solar capacity across campus, generating enough electricity to power the CU Events Center and Folsom Field. A megawatt equals 1,000 kilowatts. The new East Campus ground-based solar system complements 10 rooftop solar installations already in place across campus.
CU Boulder will add more solar-powered electricity to campus this summer with the completion of a solar power project in rural Weld County, featuring 8,000 solar panels covering an area roughly the size of four football fields. The university is partnering with Pivot Energy, which will develop, own and operate the Weld County solar site while CU Boulder benefits from a 20-year agreement to use the off-site renewable energy to help power its campus buildings. The agreement is cost-neutral to CU Boulder, meaning there’s no additional costs associated with this agreement.
Once complete, the project is expected to produce about 9.5 million kilowatt-hours of solar energy each year. This is the equivalent amount of energy used across three of CU Boulder’s large laboratory buildings on east campus in one year: the Sustainability, Energy and Environment Complex; the Sustainability, Energy and Environment Laboratory; and the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics.
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