City of Ashland - Shakespeare Festival Admin Bldg

The City of Ashland has partnered with BEF on several successful projects. BEF contributed about $60,000 to fund and build Solar Ashland, which encompasses the solar installations at the Civic Center, Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Southern Oregon University. At the time of its construction, Solar Ashland was the largest solar plant in the Pacific Northwest.

Using the first community solar funding model, Solar Ashland was funded through a collaborative effort by the City of Ashland, BEF, Bonneville Power Administration, the State of Oregon and Avista Energy, along with the citizens of Ashland, Oregon who subscribed to the project, and two local solar hosts— Southern Oregon University and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

Energy monitoring services and equipment provided to to the City by the Solar 4R Schools™ program made the real-time performance data from the 6-kilowatt PV system installed on the Oregon Shakespeare Festival Administrative Building accessible to the community. This effectively transformed this uniquely funding system into an interactive educational tool for area classrooms. Students and educators analyzed the system's performance data to compare it to other systems within the program to better understand the science of solar power generation.