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401 Miller Avenue, Mill Valley, CA, USA

401 Miller Ave is a multi-tenant commercial strip in Mill Valley, CA hosting several small retail and food-service businesses including a Puerto Rican quick-service restaurant, a garden center, and a hair salon. The building is a modest neighborhood retail center (~5,000–8,000 sq ft est.) with daytime/evening operating hours.

System layout — solar carports and rooftop arrays at
System layout — solar carports and rooftop arrays

Projected savings.

Year 1

$85,200

Lifetime (~30 yr)

$6,356,000

By the numbers.

5.9

Years to payback

$15.1M

Total benefits (lifetime)

$8.7M

Property value gain

$712,582

Tax incentives captured

Levelized cost of electricity

$0.06 / kWh · SolarPorts
vs.
$1.15 / kWh · PG&E

Like most California businesses, the site was paying high Peak rates and large Demand charges — the kind of bill structure that punishes daytime energy use and penalizes the very hours commercial properties consume the most power. The result was a Levelized Cost Of Energy (LCOE) of $1.15/kWh from PG&E, reduced to $0.06/kWh from SolarPorts.

SolarPorts evaluated their interval power usage (every 15 minutes) and proposed a right-sized 117 kW solar system for on-site generation delivered as 7 SolarPort carport structures above the parking lot and a rooftop array on the building.

The system now produces roughly 183,456 AC kWh of clean energy each year, an estimated $85,200 in year-one utility offsets, and around $6,356,000 in net lifetime savings — turning a recurring operating-cost into a long-term, predictable energy hedge.

System spec

System design

Site
401 Miller Avenue, Mill Valley, CA, USA
CA
Utility
PG&E
Seismic rating
1.2
Irradiance
2
System size
117.0 kW DC
Estimated production
183,456 AC kWh / year
Year-1 utility offset
$85,200
Lifetime savings (~30 yr)
$6,356,000
Solar panels
234 × Canadian 450 - Bifacial
(210 carport · 24 rooftop)
SolarPort structures
7
Wire loss
2.0%

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