EcoMotion is currently working for the Santa Rita Unified School District located in Salinas, California. Salinas, with a population of 150,000, is in the heart of agricultural Monterey County, known as “the Salad Bowl of the World.” Our work for the six-campus SRUSD involved two activities: First, we were asked to explore the use of battery storage systems for emergency back-up. The District has placed a high priority on six-hour storage to be able to keep students safely at school in the event of a power outage. The second task has been to examine the value of solar to the District. Our team analyzed bills for each campus and the District office (as well as adjacent Monterey County offices), conducted thorough site assessments, calculated emergency back-up requirements, and then evaluated energy and dollar savings opportunities for solar systems combined with rate switches. With Board approval, EcoMotion crafted and released a Request for Proposals for the District seeking emergency back-up (be it batteries or other forms of backup, including traditional generators) and an aggregate of 1 MW of solar. Bidders proposed one or both service options.