Robsham Visitor's Center
Work has begun on the nifty new solar parking lot canopies -- the first of their kind in our area --at the Robsham Visitor's Center parking lot across the street from Haigis Mall in the heart of UMass campus.
The solar units will cover six rows of parking spaces, producing a total of .576 megawatts of electricity. In addition UMass will install three Level Two dual charging stations for electric vehicles to plug in.
The town of Amherst, as part of their "green initiative" is installing a charging station in the lower level of the garage for the town's electric vehicle and a duel system for the general public in the parking lot behind Town Hall.
The Town Manager is also going on a fishing expedition by preparing a broadly worded Request For Proposals for companies to use town property for solar installations. Of course if NIMBYs see ye old landfill mentioned they will be quick to pull the plug by threatening yet another lawsuit.
Anyone remember when going "green" simply meant nice plantings?
Town Hall greenspace
Amherst Police station plantings
13 comments:
There's no way that solar array can produce that much power. Optimum solar generation can squeeze out 20 watts per square meter. Is that array really going to cover nearly 30,000 square meters?
Like all solar energy projects around here, the output sounds vastly overrated.
I don't subscribe to the new religion.
@trimegistus You seem to be off by a fairly large margin. One square meter should equal approximately 150 watts.
You can do a lot with the mega bucks tax payer dollar and no public review necessary
Solar flux (power in watts/area in meters-squared) on Earth is about 1500w/m^2 peak, so 150w/m^2 represents a daily average power at about 20% efficiency is again a peak figure, so 4,000± square meters (about an acre, or couple hundred parking spaces) should have roughly the claimed (peak) power. How about an RFP for the Town's CVS lot and parts of the Boltwood deck??
There is no new religion. There are, however, hundreds of millions of religipeople who insist on reproducing and using ever more energy.
6:35, what is your problem with collecting energy from the Sun which is a giant nuclear reactor?
10:01, what is your problem with using taxpayer $ for solar panels, versus, say, asphalt?
There is no new religion. There are, however, hundreds of millions of religipeople who insist on reproducing and using ever more energy.
The future is for those that show up.
The solar parking canopies at the Visitor's Center will total 300kW. I believe Larry really meant .576 megawatt-hours. That is the expected annual electricity output.
One panel about the size of 1/4 sheet of plywood can produce between 200-300 watts per hour of full sun. MA tends to average say 2-3 hours of full Sun per day (Arizona may be 5 or so in comparison). To give you a sense a watt is about 3.4 BTU, they are both measures of heat. A BTU is about the energy a match gives off. Each typical panel in Mass makes about as much energy as 500 matches being lit. I am not making light of this, great energy, but pretty small in the grand scheme of things. To give you a sense, a gallon of No. 2 oil is about 140,000 BTU. Propane is about 90,000 BTU per gallon. Each panel operating for say 20 years offsets about 24 gallons of No. 2 fuel minus, minus. Remember that it took many many gallons to get it there (production, storage, install, maint, etc. right down to the gas the guys who put them in and take care of them need to get there).
Most US homes use 30,000 watts a day in electricity. This would be 60 panels per house with no losses to storage or efficiency. If these panels are down the road or in the next town/state, you will need 100-300 panels to power the average home. After living quite well off grid, I can tell you that most homes could cut electricity use by 50-75% with little effect just by planning better in your home, buying better appliances, etc. Should communities put up solar farms so you can still waste to no end. I hope not.
But it is not panels in stead of roads, it panels in addition to roads when it comes to tax dollars from the gov's perspective.....but from the citizen's perspective it is panels in stead of decent food or housing. The people are tapped and have more than enough energy. Most homes have 5-10x more than they need.
Panels belong where they will be used. Great for a couple of electric cars, otherwise panels need to be by your home or business or most is lost in transportation resistance (electrical, not liberal).
I assume anyone who is claiming to have a qualified opinion on solar could have written the first paragraph of this comment by memory.
This is a great project. I'm a huge fan of solar, but I'd much rather have them over the numerous parking lots in every city and town than in rolling hills and fields that aren't present in every city and town. It's also nice to have some shade over parking lots. Well done UMass!
@2:59 No, because that's the same as 576kWh which is less than 2 hours at 300kW, and the sun shines more than 2 hours annually….
@3:10 You're confusing energy (BTU, Joule, Calorie, Wh=watt-hour) and power (W=watt) which is energy/time
This is fascinating. (Yawn.)
All hail Pope Albert I
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