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Solar Energy is for the Birds
APS donates and installs a used commercial solar unit

On the Paria Plateau atop northern Arizona’s Vermillion cliffs, APS has made life easier for some California condors and their human helpers.

At an elevation of more than 6,000 feet on Bureau of Land Management property, the birds’ drinking water often froze in the winter. Project personnel also need electricity in the tent-like structure where they work. The company addressed both needs recently by installing a solar power unit on the cliffs. The unit provides electricity to the condor holding pen and a tent-like structure that serves as the work area for the personnel staffing the site.

APS’ Forestry & Special Programs division previously assisted the Peregrine Fund, which operates the condor restoration program for the Arizona Game & Fish Department, in upgrading the program’s power line aversion program, designed to keep birds of prey from perching on power lines. The Peregrine Fund operates the condor site on behalf of Arizona Game and Fish Department

The company donated and installed a used commercial solar unit that would meet the condor site's needs, but getting the solar unit to its final destination was no simple task.

After the solar unit arrived in Prescott, the more-than-3,000-pound unit was hauled to the base of the Vermillion Cliffs. From there, began an arduous and slow 800-foot climb. On the final part of the climb, it took two trucks to tow the flatbed up the slope and into position to unload the solar unit.

"This is great," the Fund's Chris Parish said. "When birds have human contact, it delays their release into the wild by up to a year. Now, by being able to use a de-icing pump to keep their drinking water from freezing this winter, we won't have to enter the pen to break through the ice for them. That means we have one less source of contact."

Fund employees plan on putting video cameras around the pen, letting them watch the birds remotely. That also will remove a source of human contact for the birds.

In the past 18 months, Arizona's population of condors grew by nine, from 52 to 61. And, as of December 2005, there were 273 worldwide ─ up from a low of 22 in 1982. Condors do not start breeding until they are eight years old and only hatch one chick every two years.

"We took on this project because we wanted to do something that could make a long-term difference," APS’ Scott Paulsen said. "With the benefits this will provide both the birds and the people working with them, the birds' population should continue to increase."

December 12, 2006