First year performance for the roof-mounted, 45-kW PV-array on Oberlin College´s Adam Joseph Lewis Center

Author

Scofield, John H. ; Kaufman, David

Author_Institution

Dept. of Phys. & Astron., Oberlin Coll., OH, USA

fYear

2002

fDate

19-24 May 2002

Firstpage

1691

Lastpage

1694

Abstract

The curved roof of Oberlin College´s, all-electric, Environmental Studies Center sports a 4700 ft², 45-kW, photovoltaic array consisting of 690, BP-Solar crystalline silicon modules arranged in 10 rows, each with a different tilt angle. The array is divided into three sub-arrays, each grid-connected through a 15-kW Trace inverter and a 15-kVA Square-D isolation transformer. The PV array produced 59000 kW-hr of energy in its first full year of operation. Our own calculations, which incorporate manufacturer specifications for modules, inverters, and transformers, combined with TMY2 weather data for Cleveland, project that the array will produce 67500 kW-hr annually, 12% higher than observed. Explanations for the performance deficit are suggested.

Keywords

building integrated photovoltaics; elemental semiconductors; invertors; silicon; solar cell arrays; transformers; 15 kVA; 15 kW; 45 kW; 59000 kWh; Adam Joseph Lewis Center; BP-Solar crystalline silicon modules; Cleveland; Oberlin College; Si; Square-D isolation transformer; TMY2 weather data; Trace inverter; all-electric Environmental Studies Center; photovoltaic array; roof-mounted PV array; tilt angle; Buildings; Crystallization; Educational institutions; Energy consumption; Energy measurement; Inverters; Lighting; Manufacturing; Photovoltaic systems; Silicon;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, 2002. Conference Record of the Twenty-Ninth IEEE

ISSN

1060-8371

Print_ISBN

0-7803-7471-1

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/PVSC.2002.1190945

Filename

1190945