While most businesses in today’s economic climate are suffering, one Auburn businesses is banking on green.

A recent and flourishing local partnership between the Auburn-based manufacturer of video monitors, Ceronix, and Thunder Valley Casino, has resulted in the launch of a new international technology line.

Ceronix recently launched a new line of liquid crystal displays (LCDs), which are more vibrant, weigh less and require less than half as much power and expense to operate than traditional CRTs (cathode-ray tubes).

Thunder Valley now features more than 700 Ceronix monitors on its casino floor and more monitors are being changed over every day. And Ceronix now ships more than 2,000 new LCDs per month to ports in Russia, Australia, South America and Slovenia — all due to a partnership between companies about 20 miles apart.

“They have helped us and I believe we have really helped them,” Don Whitaker, principal of Ceronix, said of the partnership with Thunder Valley. “If we all work together I think we can really find ways to help one another.”

Based on math estimates by Whitaker and Paul Alexander, director of engineering at Ceronix, Thunder Valley is saving an estimated 250,000 kilowatt hours of energy each year.

Scott Garawitz, chief executive officer of Thunder Valley, said the partnership with Ceronix has been “awesome.”

“Essentially, what they can provide to us is a state-of-the art, custom-made video monitors,” Garawitz said. “We can fine-tune them for our uses all while using local vendors and encouraging more energy efficiency.”

State Assemblyman Ted Gaines, R-Roseville, toured Ceronix Friday morning and talked with Whitaker about his energy-saving model and new machines.

Ceronix has been running the electricity meter backward since early 2003, when the business covered its 1.5-acre roof with solar panels.

“Ceronix is a dynamic leader in the high-tech business that is using new technologies to become energy independent,” Gaines said. “Their solar program produces more than enough energy for their facility and if other businesses followed, we would be one step closer to becoming independent of Middle Eastern oil.”

Ceronix requires a maximum of 200 kilowatts of electricity to operate, so its solar power system, capable of 400 kilowatts of output, is exporting energy to the power grid in full sun on summer afternoons.

Consultant Ed Graves, the former director of Placer County’s Economic Development commission, has been working with Whitaker and Ceronix on its international trade efforts.

“The goal of the county is to build a tax base and develop primary-wage-earner jobs,” Graves said. “And Ceronix has met both of those objectives. A community like Auburn, or any community for that matter, can only thrive if money is coming in.”

Graves said there are two ways the county generates money — through tourism and manufacturing.

“Things are being produced here and shipped all over the world,” he said. “Money is coming back to Auburn, California.”

Whitaker said he is focused on continuing to develop energy-saving solutions, but that his efforts aren’t doing too bad for his business model either.

“Technology is changing,” he said. “You have to keep up with the technology or your business will become obsolete.”

The Journal’s Jenna Nielsen can be reached at jennan@goldcountrymedia.com or comment on this story at auburnjournal.com.