The History

Solar Power Systems (SPS) is a local Santa Maria, Calif. company that was formed four years ago by Norman Teixeira and Daniel Ringstmeyer. Mr. Ringstmeyer has over 33 years of project engineering experience in heavy industrial projects. He is a licensed professional engineer in the States of Colorado and California. He also is a licensed General Engineering Contractor. Mr. Teixeira was the founder of Teixeira Farms, one of the nations largest vegetable growers in the United States. He has developed many of the farms cooler and processing facilities. Both gentlemen have a strong interest in the emerging green power industry for various ag and industrial applications.

Our Focus

Solar Power’s principal focus is green power and our customer base includes agriculture, commercial and industrial businesses. The companies area of interest are those customers that are relatively large energy uses, i.e. >30KW of power on an annual basis and large thermal natural gas users. Projects completed to date have all been photovoltaic projects, but the firm also currently has several solar thermal projects that they are evaluating.

What We've Done

SPS’s first photovoltaic project was a 100 KW facility for Great White Dental Labs in Santa Maria. This facility utilized the “air space” over the parking lot for the collector area while allowing cars to park under the panels for shade. This structure was constructed at sufficient height to allow large delivery trucks access to the rear of the facility under the panels. This project was a recipient of the Green Award for 2004 by Santa Barbara.

SPS' second photovoltaic project went on line in June of 2005 for Teixeira Farms. It also is an elevated support system for 756 panels producing 112 KW of power. The area under the collectors is utilized by farm equipment as a parking area protected from the weather. This power will feed three irrigation pumps as a grid tied system with PG&E. The pumps are 1-60 hp and 2-50 hp pumps. Two of the pumps are located a distance from the collector, with one located approximately 2000’ away. This project had a requirement to be able to deliver power to a remote installation from the collector area to minimize the impact to the active farming area.

Where We're Going

In addition to expanding into the agriculture market, SPS has pending projects serving the dairy and oil production industries.