Employees from Farmers Electric Cooperative installed the solar panels onto the pole today (4/5/2010).

Dick Yoder-Short’s Physics classes continue with their solar panel installation project. Some dug the trench to get electrical hook-up to the panel while others assembled the solar panels to the frame.

Warren McKenna, Dick Yoder-Short, Jim Miller, and Joe Swartzentruber are locating the site for the photovoltaic array.

The Iowa Office of Energy Independence (OEI) has recently announced thirty awards of grants for community-based energy efficiency and renewable energy projects. Iowa Mennonite School received a grant of $9,475 to install a solar array on the school grounds and incorporate energy education into the school curriculum. Farmers Electric and Central Plains Solar are partners in the project, providing technical and additional financial support.

The key component of the IMS Community Solar and Education Program will be a 1.8 kW tracking photovoltaic array that will be tied to the school’s electrical system. The solar array will be installed in the spring of 2010 and will be located near the southeast corner of the gymnasium. Data from the array’s energy output will be collected and used as a teaching tool for physics, science and economics. The array’s real time output will be posted on the school’s website.

Farmers Electric installed the pole for the solar panel.

The OEI Community Grant program is funded through the annual Iowa Power Fund appropriation. The program was created to help local communities, non-profits and businesses improve energy efficiency and expand the use of renewable energy. A list of project awards is available on the OEI website at www.energy.iowa.gov.

IMS students will assist with the installation of the PV array. Farmer’s Electric will donate labor, materials and large equipment to install the array. Central Plains Solar will donate labor and materials to tie the solar array to the school electrical system.

Once it is determined how much sunlight can be received from this site the data will be used to calculate the potential power that can be generated for each month and the year.

Dick Yoder-Short and Carly Unruh and Kara Schlabaugh are using the Solar Pathfinder to determine how much sunlight the PV site will receive during the year

Sample of Solar Radiation Data
IMS Physics class
March 24, 2010 

The Physics class is divided up into groups of two students per group to measure and calculate the energy we expect to obtain from the photovoltaic array.

With the Solar Pathfinder we are able to determine how much any obstacles will shade the photovoltaic array for each month of the year. We can then calculate the average number of daylight hours of full sunlight received each day of each month. We used the National Renewable Energy Lab data for this calculation. This takes into account cloudy days and the fact that the sunlight is not as intense at 6 pm as it is at noon. We then calculate the kilowatt hours of power produced each month by the array. The array is rated to produce 1.8 kilowatts for each hour of full sunlight.

This is the data from Collin Miller and Kyle Miller taken on March 24, 2010.

Total annual kWh: 3867

At 12 cents per kWh this amounts to about $ 464 energy savings per year.

At 1.5 pounds of carbon dioxide per kWh produced by a coal fired plant this saves about 5800 pounds or 2600 kg of carbon dioxide per year.