100 Kilowatt Solar Array Installation

The Independent Energy Systems team installs 540 SunPower SPR-210 modules on the roof at Sun Ridge Farms plant in Watsonville, CA.

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• sunpower
• independent
• energy
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• santa
• cruz

[HighfireX]

How much would a project like this cost if I wanted to make a solar farm of my own in the future? And how much maintenance do you do on the solar panels? (rain, snow, dust, dirt, kids, etc.)

[iesolar]

Check with a local solar provider for cost- I don't know anything about incentives in Canada and installation type (rooftop vs. ground-mount rack vs. pole mounting) has a big effect on cost. Also an issue for "farms" is how much your local utility will pay you for your energy.

Rooftop maintenance = twice yearly cleaning

If you install on the ground I suppose kids/vandals might be an issue. Snow can actually help keep the mods cleaner so long as it slides off (rather than melting in place).

[geoffart]

take your daily usage of electricity (kilowatt/hr), then multiply by .25.

That will apparently give you the size array in kilowatts, that you would need to meet your needs!

So apparently, if we assume average household that should be 2.66kilowatt array

[iesolar]

Rules of thumb are seductive, but rarely accurate: Daily use varies with time of year; Available sun in Bakersfield is higher than SF, etc. You can't take ONE day's use and determine array size accurately, you should use an average of multiple *years* of energy use data (if available) and multiple years of insolation data. While .25 may be roughly accurate in your location, it won't work for all. Also, 2.66 / .25 = 10.64, way lower than avg daily use even in the green-ish Santa Cruz, sadly.

[martinorozco]

Question If I want to connect the array to the grid what type of converter should I use?

[iesolar]

there is a wide variety of inverters to choose from- your local solar professional can tell you what would work best for your situation.

This particular installation uses a SatCon inverter.

[kostea13]

SOLAR POWER + ELETRIC CARS = FREEDOM !

[horuhe00]

$500,000 divided by 32 houses, divided by 12 months, divided by a 30 year lifecycle...

$43.40 per month per house

[KingSlimjeezy]

@kostea13 NOPE

sunlight only has about .8kw of usable energy per square yard (bright sunlight)

the most efficient solar panels today (at about $40k/sq yard) are 40-50% efficient.

1kw~1 hp

a solar car ( even in a perfect world without cost or loss of efficiency) would have a maximum hp of 10

thats just dangerously under powered

[bytmeh]

what a waste of energy.....

[AtibbsSPARTAN]

That's great but unfortunately at full capacity that entire array could only power 4-5 Nissan Leafs

[ViolentKisses87]

@iesolar Yeah all the power companies I know give you a power usage statement for at least the last 12 months along with your normal billing statement.

[Abexgp]

Oh hello! Have you tried the intellitus cash system (do a google search)? Ive heard some great things about it and my buddy made a lot of money with it.

[altenergyinc]

@henrykay01

nice. I've invented a way to make money. It's called telling people about a perpetual motion machine. I can build one for 200K. you in?

[SOLARTRADERdotCA]

@HighfireX Cost depends on where you are located, as well as what incentives are available to you. Typically the cost of installations is about $7/Watt. If the system is ground mounted in a field and fields are tilled near by, I would imagine that you would need to clean the panels to maintain optimum efficiency. Snow typically slides off tilted panels. Inverters are said to have a life of 10 years. Other than that it is virtually maintenance free, unless you have trackers. PM me for more info.