Office Park Landscaping: March 2008 Archives

Southern California Edison will install 250 megawatts of solar panels on 65 million square feet of roofs - that’s two square miles - of Southern California commercial buildings at a cost of $875 million. That project will be the nation’s largest solar cell installation.

Enough solar to power 162,000 homes.

In the initial phase of the program, SoCal Edison will lease 607,000 square feet of roof space at ProLogis’ Kaiser Distribution Park in Fontana, California. The area will be used to install and maintain solar panels with the potential to generate enough electricity to power 1,426 households for one year.

At the conclusion of the start-up phase, which will include five to 10 additional installations and is expected to be completed by the end of 2008, the utility will launch its full renewable energy project, aiming to complete 50 megawatts of solar panel installations each year for a total of 250 MW. Each individual installation is expected to comprise one to two megawatts.

“I urge others to follow in their footsteps,” said Governor Schwarzenegger. “If commercial buildings statewide partnered with utilities to put this solar technology on their rooftops, it would set off a huge wave of renewable energy growth.”

SCE hopes to have the first solar rooftops in service by August. The company says it will install at the rate of one megawatt a week.

The program would give a big boost to California’s Million Solar Roofs program and help SCE meet a state requirement to get 20 percent of its energy from renewables by 2010.

Financing Solar Installations

Yesterday, Environmental Leader reported that solar companies are becoming financial intermediaries, leading companies to install solar power that wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford it.

Using a “power-purchase agreement” model, many solar power companies take on the cost of installing solar panels on customers’ roofs. In return, customers pay the solar power company for the panels’ output, generally at a lower rate than they would otherwise pay.

The power purchase model is also attracting bankers - Morgan Stanley, G.E. Energy Financial Services, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, and MMA Renewable Ventures have all arranged financing for recent solar energy projects.

Besides the financing, state incentives and a federal investment tax credit (worth up to 30 cents on the dollar) are also driving adoption.

Water sustains every community... from the most basic needs of its citizens to the very lifeblood of the community's economic growth. In both urban and rural areas across the U.S., water rights, allocation, treatment, delivery, and supply issues are increasingly subject to legislation and regulation. Frequently, measures are passed in reaction to a crisis and without a comprehensive plan. As the focus on our water resources increases, so does the need for equitable policy and progressive water management practices.

The Irrigation Association® has developed Turf and Landscape Irrigation Best Management Practices (BMPs) for policymakers and professionals who must save and extend our water supply while protecting water quality.

Irrigation Best Practices

The five Turf and Landscape Irrigation Best Management Practices include:

1. Assure Overall Quality of the Irrigation System;
2. Distribution of Water;
3. Install the Irrigation System to Meet the Design Criteria;
4. Maintain the Irrigation System for Optimum Performance; and\
5. Manage the Irrigation System to Respond to the Changing

Read more about Irrigation Best Management Practices

More than half of the world's people now live in cities, and in the UK around 90% of of the population are urbanites. People are quickly becoming an urban species.

Urban green spaces become more critical than ever -- both for quality of human life and for the wildlife and habitat that are part of the rich tapestry of nature's support system.

Urban Sprawl

Urban sprawl has created vast expanses of moderately dense "humanized" habitat with a high ratio of concrete and a low diversity of plants. The result of suburbanitis has been a dependence on cars to replace personal locomotion.

High Density City Planning

Proponents of the compact city have captured the attention of community leaders because a vertical city offers practical solutions for tough issues such as pollution inherent to a rapidly growing population that expects the energy-driven amenities to which we have become accustomed.

Benefits of Urban Open Spaces

Loss of green space. Green space is usually the first casualty of high density urban development. Backyard gardens are vital fresh food sources for many low-income and elderly residents...and they provide respite and natural resources education for everyone involved.

Carbon Balance in Urban Landscapes

Clean air and an adequate water table are also affected by the amount of land available to absorb rainfall. Salt water incursion is a growing problem for the highly populated coastal areas. Creeping salt water makes soil impossible to support plant life...and plant life is necessary to replenish and filter our air quality.

Population Control's Role in Urban Planning

Leaders are remiss in focusing on building higher density cities without also focusing on the need for population control.

This editorial was localized and based on a BBC editorial by Dr Richard Fuller, a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Sheffield, in "The Green Room", a series of opinion pieces on the BBC News website.

Biological diversity in city parks and green spaces can have psychological benefits for humans, according to a  study from the United Kingdom. Researchers found that visitors to city parks with a greater diversity of birds, butterflies, plants, and other organisms reported feeling better than visitors to less-diverse green spaces. Such findings have important implications for urban planning and policy as the human population becomes increasingly urbanized, the study concludes.

“Public urban greenspaces provide one of the few avenues for direct contact with the natural environment,” the researchers write, adding that, “Such contact has measurable physical and psychological benefits.” Similar studies point to the same conclusion.

A nine-year survey of U.S. gall bladder patients showed that patients recovered faster and required less pain medication if their hospital windows overlooked trees rather than brick walls.

Other research has indicated that inner city residents who had some nearby nature outside their apartments showed significantly lower levels of aggression and violence.

Similarly, workers in buildings that contain plant life have been found to have better concentration and less anxiety on average than those working without plants.

Most of the plants used in landscaping do not invade or harm wildland areas. But a few vigorous species can - and do - escape from cultivation into open landscapes and cause a variety of ecological problems. They crowd out native plants, insects and animals, and can lead to increased flooding, fire and crop losses.

A few simple steps can prevent invasions before they start. We can be an environmentally responsible community - one that supports horticultural businesses and beautiful gardens!

1. Phase out invasive plant species in your business
2. Plant and promote beautiful non-invasive alternatives
3. Share your success stories
4. Follow the national voluntary codes of conduct to prevent horticultural invasion

PlantRight is a voluntary, proactive program for the horticultural community to prevent invasive plant introductions through horticulture. PlantRight was designed by the steering committee of California Horticultural Invasives Prevention (Cal-HIP) partnership to communicate the need to transition away from invasive plants in the gardening and landscaping trade.

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