PROMOTING PV WITH EDUCATIONAL DATA DISPLAYS

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1 PROMOTING PV WITH EDUCATIONAL DATA DISPLAYS Matthew Arner Clayton Handleman Heliotronics, Inc. Heliotronics, Inc Main Street 1083 Main Street Hingham, MA Hingham, MA ABSTRACT Including a well-designed data display in a PV project can increase customer satisfaction, increase perceived value and facilitate the project by motivating stake holders. Additionally, PV projects with data acquisition have the potential to help influence policy and steer more public dollars to support this technology. educational material for all building occupants and visitors. In addition to a physical kiosk location at the project site, a database such as SunViewer.net can be accessed on the internet allowing for even greater exposure in the community and around the country. High quality data acquisition provides an excellent foundation from which to build public awareness and promote solar energy. This is important for the PV industry, particularly in states where large funds are up for grabs by a variety of competing renewable energy technologies. Utilization of dynamic displays to enhance public awareness can be an important factor in influencing the public and decision makers regarding the viability and desirability of photovoltaics. High quality data acquisition can be an excellent outreach tool for the industry in its efforts to demonstrate the value of PV to fund managers and decision makers. 1. EDUCATING STUDENTS AND ENERGY CONSUMERS Educators have begun to recognize the opportunity to implement interactive renewable energy and energy efficiency curriculum and build applied science activities to illustrate the links between energy and sustainability. Educational data displays are being installed in solar schools program to help build curriculum around solar PV installations. These same educational data displays which explain the broader benefits of a sustainable energy supply to students can be used to raise the awareness of the general public. Data displays like Figure 1 provide informal Fig. 1: Heliotronics SunViewer data monitoring display. It is best to include data acquisition in the early stages of project planning. It can be used to sell the project. However, even late in the project planning stages, or after installation, the added value is such that funding can often be found for data monitoring and display. 2. SUNVIEWER.NET : SATISFYING A NATIONAL NEED

2 SunViewer.net is a highly flexible distributed energy tracking database which serves a variety of purposes including: Education Public awareness Remote operations and maintenance System performance tracking Regional performance tracking Research SunViewer.net stores 15 minute average, time stamped data on a variety of quantities of interest including: system energy, avoided emissions, power, peak power, irradiance, meteorological data, etc. The data is processed and provided in graphical, tabular and downloadable.csv formats. Data is presented in daily, monthly, annual, and cumulative, formats permitting a variety of interesting inquiries to be pursued. Examples include: monthly and seasonal production variability, impact of temperature on energy production and system efficiency, aggregate power production over a large number of systems and many more. vendor of DG equipment. This allows, for example, a state to use a variety of different DG equipment companies to provide generation capacity while consolidating tracking to a single monitoring entity. The heart of SunViewer.net resides in a central server fed by data monitoring systems around the country running SunServer software. Data can be fed to it from computers inside of firewalls, usually with no modification to those firewalls. This greatly simplifies installation and maintenance of the overall system in comparison to other approaches. SunViewer.net is operated privately and is designed to be funded by a widely distributed customer base. This robust funding model substantially reduces the vulnerability to the wildly fluctuating funding environment prevalent in government funding. As an example, the UPVG database was shut down due to retraction of its federal funding. Prior to the release of SunViewer.net, there was no online database available to all DG producers. SunViewer.net is a great resource for the entire industry allowing the consolidation of information about PV into a single database. SunViewer.net also has web data display templates that enable project sponsors to brand projects for higher visibility. These projects can now feed data into a powerful Internet database with a well designed graphing engine to display the data. The graphs are easily embedded in a web page of the project sponsor s design. Fig 2: Example of a SunViewer.net power plot Queries can be executed for individual sites, designated groupings such as projects or the entire network of all monitored systems. The database is able to aggregate multiple systems into one output. For example, if your state had 50 schools, SunViewer.net would allow users to answer questions such as, how much pollution was avoided due to the renewable energy production of all 50 schools in one particular day. The system can store power and energy data as well as meteorological data from any site that has an Internet connection and a compatible data acquisition system. While originally designed for monitoring of PV systems, the system can accommodate a variety of Distributed Generation (DG) sources. SunViewer.net is particularly valuable because it does not restrict the user to a particular The SunViewer.net service consists of a database and graphing engine on a central server hosted by an ISP. Every 15 minutes, each site that participates in our service sends their data to a database on the central server. This process is fully automated and requires minimal bandwidth (approximately 1kB per hour). Usually no maintenance by the site s network administrator is required. Heliotronics provides a project portal from which data for every site in a given project can be accessed. Further, the portal can be customized to have the look and feel of the customer s web site. This allows seamless linking from the customer s site to the data portal. From the standpoint of the user, they have never left the site they started from 3. CASE STUDIES Presented below are a few case studies of PV projects where data acquisition is used to enhance the value of the project. These case studies are just a few in a range of projects, including solar schools, nature centers, green businesses, and green homes, where data acquisition

3 systems were thought, by the customer, to enhance project value. One thing that each of these case studies share in common is that funding for their PV arrays was not contingent on having the data acquisition system. It was seen as a high value addition to the project and the sites either self funded or went to the additional effort to find additional funding to support the inclusion of a data acquisition and display system. Data monitoring displays strategically located in hightraffic areas of the building are critical tools for occupants and visitors to interact with the building and understand how PV systems are actively producing energy. Tours and case studies are important but not sufficient to reach the public. These concepts are illustrated throughout this paper. Educational data displays also provide marketing value for the owner of the building and the project participants by showcasing their commitment to high performance design, methods, and materials. 3.1 MASSACHUSETTS AUDUBON SOCIETY S BOSTON NATURE CENTER The Boston Nature Center, is an exciting and innovative urban environmental education center. The Center s nature walks, informal education programs, outreach activities and urban community gardens focus on an audience that goes largely unserved by suburban or rural nature centers. touch-screen kiosk in the exhibit area of the Nature Center. The Boston Nature Center, managed by Mass Audubon, is a model of environmental sustainability and energy efficiency. Mass Audubon serves both as a leader and as catalyst for conservation, by stimulating individual and institutional action through education, advocacy, and habitat protection. It is using the Boston Nature Center building as a unique opportunity to educate the public about the impact that our energy use can have on the environment. The building, which includes photovoltaic roof shingles, a geothermal heat pump, solar hot water, day lighting and energy efficient features, was designed to use 30-35% less energy than a traditionally constructed building. The PV system will be a great educational tool for the many students and visitors that come to the Boston Nature Center. -Laura Johnson, President of Mass Audubon 3.2 DEXTER SCHOOL Dexter School is a non-profit independent day school for boys. It offers pre-school through grade nine, preparing students for admission to leading secondary schools. Dexter School has a strong commitment to science and technology education. In 2002, the school opened the Clay Center for Science and Technology with a solar photovoltaic and wind installation. The Dexter School s renewable energy system consists of an integrated solar and wind generating system that is designed foremost as an educational resource and secondarily as a source of non-polluting, renewable energy for the Dexter campus. Heliotronics data monitoring system provides an interface for students to interact with the systems. Data is accessible from the school s computer network and thereby available in all classrooms to support student projects in science, math, environmental studies, and social studies. Fig. 3: Heliotronics touch screen kiosk at the Boston Nature Center. By installing a Heliotronics data monitoring system, the Massachusetts Audubon Society has created an exciting Solar Learning Lab at the Boston Nature Center. Mass Audubon is using the Solar Learning Lab to educate the public about renewable energy technologies and energy efficiency. The system includes Heliotronics fullyfeatured Franklin monitoring system with an interactive

4 unclear how much the shading would affect the performance of Mr. Otten s PV system. The solution for the Otten residence was to install a Heliotronics Feynman WD package to monitor the output of their PV system. Fig. 4: Inverter closet for Dexter School solar and wind installations. Students can view the equipment safely through the windows in the doors. All of the system components at the Dexter School are accessible to students so that they can see the actual hardware at work. Even the inverters and controllers are visible behind glass panels so that students and visitors can better understand the technology. In this way, Dexter School is able to maximize the educational benefits of their system. The solar and wind power system costs were included in the building budget for the new Science Center. By incorporating the renewable energy systems in the early design phase of the building, Dexter School was able to minimize the installation costs of the system. "We had originally installed inverter based data acquisition systems from two different manufacturers. These were helpful for operations and maintenance but turned out to have limitations from an educational standpoint. We later learned of the Heliotronics system and, after a demo, the decision to upgrade was a no-brainer. It is a great educational tool. -Bob Phinney Dexter School Science and Technology Coordinator 3.3 OTTEN RESIDENCE David Otten is a responsible homeowner in Newton, Massachusetts committed to the cause of solar energy. Mr. Otten was planning to install a photovoltaic array on the south-facing slope of his home s roof; however, the roof was heavily shaded by the overhanging tree limbs. It was Fig. 5: Heliotronics weather instrumentation at the Otten Residence. "The Heliotronics Data Acquisition System has proved valuable to me in understanding how my system operates. The detailed information which it collects allows me to determine if my PV array is operating correctly. For example the performance of the array is affected by the incident sun light and the temperature of the array. Both of these variables are measured and displayed so that I can compare the data sheet specifications with my measured performance. During some hours of the day I have trees casting shadows on my array. The DAS has helped me quantify the performance penalties I am experiencing due to this shading... Heliotronics was recommended by many as the market leader and their experience in this field has saved me much time and effort. -David Otten, Homeowner 3.4 GREENWORKS Another example is the Greenworks Building in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The building, which is an incubator for green businesses, has a data display in the lobby where all building occupants and visitors can see the

5 real-time power output of the PV array. The marketing of Green Building projects is typically focused around the economic and environmental benefits while the educational and promotional value is overlooked. Uploading educational data displays to the internet provides yet another dimension to raise awareness amongst a broader audience. 4. CONCLUSION raise public awareness. This is a high priority as the solar industry works to leverage high-profile installations to build a sustainable market for PV technologies. A dynamic realtime data display can bring life to solar panels by bridging the gap between observing a solar installation and understanding the value of solar energy. Energy consumers with no previous knowledge of PV systems can understand that the solar panels are producing electricity and powering building systems without depleting resources or releasing harmful emissions. By incorporating a high-quality educational data monitoring system, every renewable energy installation can be used to