SOLAR ENERGY

Realtime Solar Performance
In October 2011 Clean Green Energy LLC installed a solar system on our building.

CGE has installed numerous solar PV installations for our customers but, being an energy efficiency company, it made a lot of sense for us to practice what we preach by installing a system on our own building.

The system consist of two arrays with each array having 44, 225 Watt solar PV panels. The DC output from each array is fed into a 10 kW inverter made by Fronius USA.

The total system has a generating capacity of 19,800 Watts.

Incentives

Our local utility, Detroit Edison, was offering a solar incentive program at the time called The Solar Currents Program*.  Under the program we would receive 50% of the value of the Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) upon installation and 50% of the value of the remaining RECs as a credit on our bill for the next 20 years.  Specifically the upfront RECs were compensated at $2.40 per Watt installed and the remaining RECs are compensated at $0.11 per kWh generated over 20 years.  (*Note: this program is no longer available. The program was fully subscribed shortly after our system was commissioned).

We were also able to take advantage of a special renewable REEP grant from our local office of the US Department of Agriculture and special ITC federal tax incentives for renewable energy installations.

Combined, the incentives and grants funded nearly 80% of the installed cost of the project and has significantly reduced the payback of the system.
A great compliment to wind power 

Solar PV installations are the perfect compliment to our WIND•e20 wind turbine. Solar provides power when the wind is calm and wind provides power when the sun isn't shining.

 

How Solar Works

Solar modules convert the suns energy to DC (direct current) electricity. An inverter converts the DC electricity to "household" AC (alternating current) electricity, the AC electricity is then fed into the electrical system of the building. That AC electricity is either immediately consumed or exported to the grid to be "stored" for future use.

Some systems use batteries to store electricity, typically if the location is remote or if the owner prefers to be independent of the utility grid. This is called an "off-grid" system and works in basically the same way except for where the energy is stored.