What is the infatuation with building the biggest solar array of any private college in America? Why not start with a smaller prototype project that can bring the same awareness of sustainability? These questions were asked by other colleges in the past and are now should be considered at Occidental College.
Arizona State University is located in an area with a plethora of sun and opportunity for solar energy, so it is no wonder that they started working on this source of renewable energy decades before most colleges. However, they started their programs small in order to test solar energy on their campus and to learn from their mistakes early on. In taking this approach, they have continued to add solar projects that are better able to perform and they have capitalized on the ability to learn from the mistakes that were made in earlier projects. As they have learned the best ways for their college to utilize the sun as an energy source their projects have grown in size. After years worth of projects, testings, trail and errors, Arizona State University has installed and currently operates more than 1.8 megawatts of solar energy. http://solar.asu.edu/
What does this have to do with Occidental College? Yes, we want to install solar and take advantage of rebates offered now, but rushing into a project may not be the best thing for our institution. There is no denying that the idea of solar energy is a great thing, especially in a place like California. What the example of ASU brings up is that learning and understanding your particular setting through testing of smaller projects might be more effective in the long term use of solar energy. Instead of spending millions of dollars on an enormous start-up project and then finding out there may have been better placements, technologies, or other opportunities, it may actually be better to start small and expand on the best practices that are found.
Since Occidental is currently having trouble funding an array of 2 megawatts they need to consider different possibilities while still maintaining the idea of sustainability. I don't believe that giving up on solar should ever be considered on option but installing a smaller array and working to build on it might be a plausible option for Occidental College.
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I think that Jason brings up a great point. It would be very advantageous for Occidental to start with a smaller solar array and work it's way up to a larger array. If for no other reason Oxy might not be able to afford such a huge solar array. Using the example of ASU could really help us as a college work towards a more sustainable source of energy over the long run and could help us avoid potential costly problems. By starting small we could gradually add to our array and possibly reduce the chance of costly problems. However, the fact that the cost of solar panels is at an all time low and subsidies are at an all time high is very hard to ignore. Looking on the positive side, maybe the fact that such a large array seems to be economically infeasible will cause us to look at the solar project from a different angle and could result in a more gradual and calculated plan of attack for solar at Occidental.
ReplyDeleteThomas
I wonder if using a parking lot to generate say 100-200kw is significantly less cost per watt than utilizing the hillside? Right now the 1 megawatt option seems attractive because it maximizes rebates and avoids the cost of a new substation. Very small arrays on roofs are hard to do because we would often need to rebuild the roofs.
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