Thinking About a Solar System for Your House?

Two solar systems are installed and operating the (FCC). The systems are similar to what you might build at your house,
but larger. if you’d like a “hands-on” tour of the systems, send an e-mail to
the energy committee, energy@sudbury.ma.us. You can view the performance of the systems online (below).

The solar photovoltaic (PV) electricity generation and the solar domestic hot water preheating are separate systems. Each systems’ collector panels sit on the Gymnasium roof and are readily noticed from the entrance of the Recreation Center; the hot water collectors are the top two rows and PV panels on the bottom four rows. The PV inverter and the hot water system storage tank are in FCC’s mechanical room. The thought behind two smaller systems instead of one larger one, was to demonstrate each technology. Locating them in the common spaces of FCC allows anyone to check them out in detail (with prior arrangement).

Each system’s “brain” is part of the Community Center’s local area computer network. Sudbury’s IT department has created external IP addresses for them to allow anyone to see how they’re doing. The solar thermal system performance can be viewed at http://solarhw.sudbury.ma.us;  the solar PV array and other parameters of its  accompanying weather station can be viewed at https://services.wattmetrics.com/dashboard.aspx?siteId=127#/dashboard.

The systems were conceived and schematically designed by the
Energy Committee, principally by Mark Sevier, a professional solar designer and
committee member. Those concepts and the systems’ expected performance are
included in the grant application which is available on the energy committee
website at http://sudbury.ma.us/departments/Energy/doc6618/EECBGApplicationTownofSudburysubmission11-24-09.pdf. The concepts were incorporated into third-party design documents completed by BLW Engineers of Littleton; those documents can be viewed at FCC solar designs.

The systems were funded by an Energy Efficiency Conservation
Block Grant (EECBG) of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Sudbury’s Energy and Sustainability Committee applied to the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources for the grant and was awarded $143,000. Ostrow Electric of Worchester was the successful bidder for the 6.72 kWDC PV system at $37,900, or$5.64 per installed watt. The cost is in the range of what would be expected for a 3 kWDC residential system now. Little Foot Energy/New England Solar Systems was the installer of the solar thermal system having bid $77,877.

There's much more to discuss about the systems, including the
design trade-offs, expected performance, cost effectiveness, what went wrong
during the installations and what to think about and watch out for when you do
your own.  All of that (and more!) in future posts.