An architect’s rendering shows solar panels atop the US Airways Center parking garage. The panels are expected to generate enough power for 26 games.

There’s a good chance that many of our readers have noticed that we are pretty big fans of Steve Nash and the Phoenix Suns NBA team. For fun, check out our community for a video that Steve Nash and Nike released on Earth Day this year. The video came after Steve convinced Nike to produce the official Steve Nash shoe from scraps of material on the factory floor. Now the best point guard in the league is going solar at his home and has convinced his team to do the same at their home stadium.

Yesterday the Phoenix Suns “shed some light” on the new solar panels that will be going on top of their home court, the US Airways Center. The 1,100 panel photovoltaic system is expected to produce 194 kilowatts, enough energy to reduce the team’s power usage by the equivalent of 26 home games each season and keep approx. 440,000 pounds of carbon dioxide out of the air, according to Suns General Manager Steve Kerr. The Suns’ solar installation won’t cost the team any up-front cash, but will cost approx. 1.5 million and the team anticipates that it will receive a yearly rebate to the tune of $60,000 - $85,000.

The Suns struck an arrangement with Tioga Energy, out of CA, in which Tioga covers the costs of setting up the solar panels and maintains them for 20 years, (seems like a pretty long time for a technology product ) while the Suns pay Tioga an annual fee determined by the amount of energy the solar panels produce and the annual rebate they get from the Arizona Public Service Co.

Any other NBA team using solar? Yes. Ironically, the thorn in the Suns’ side, the Lakers, announced last month that they too will be putting solar panels on their roof. The San Francisco Giants announced in 2007 that they would be installing solar panels, followed by panels at Fenway Park in Boston and Coors Field in Denver.

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