Nursery Installing Massive Solar Project
The Register-Guard - October 18, 2009
Briefly Metro Section
CORNELIUS — Workers at Grace Dinsdale’s 130-acre Blooming Nursery are installing an array of towering solar panels, with the help of SOLARC Architecture and Engineering, that will stretch nearly the length of the 700-foot driveway.
When finished, it will be Oregon’s largest application of solar thermal energy. Instead of producing electricity, the solar panels will heat the tank water, which will circulate underground and warm the plants growing in a 54,000-square-foot greenhouse.
Dinsdale expects to use her existing natural gas heating system only as a backup.
It’s a project of great interest to the state’s 2,130 nurseries, which are particularly susceptible to energy cost increases because much of their produce is grown in heated greenhouses.
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