Anderson Valley Brewing Co. installs solar array.

The Anderson Valley Brewing Company has announced the installation of the largest private photovoltaic solar array north of the San Francisco Bay Area at their brewery in Boonville, California. "We feel an obligation, specifically to this pristine valley in which we're located, but to the rest of the world as well, to be responsible with resources," says brewery president Ken Allen. "We recycle as much of our waste as we can, and we have our own wastewater reclamation system. Now we can also greatly reduce our reliance on outside electricity. Solar energy is the future. We're proud to be getting a jump on it." Allen said Anderson Valley's system includes state-of-the-art photovoltaic panels, with a life expectancy of forty to fifty years, paired with new-generation inverters, in a self-contained system. The $860,000 project will include two southwest-facing arrays--one on the roof of the brewery cellar and one on the packaging plant--and an auxiliary free-standing array. The project, slated to be complete this month, will be capable of combined output of 125,000 watts per hour at 480 volts AC during peak solar hours.