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5. Interior Materials
2008 Array Output Totals January: 305 kWh February: 454 kWh March: 645 kWh April: 896 kWh May: 718 kWh June: 812 kWh July: 859 kWh August: 754 kWh September: 754 kWh October: 504.3 kWh November 262 kWh December: 162 kWh
Lifetime: 8145 kWh as of 11/08
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Onsite Generation - Solar Power -operational since Sept. 15 2007-
Companies like to say they are working to help the environment by buying credits to offset carbon emissions. This is a great goal, but it's far from ideal to help ensure a 'green' corporation.
We're taking a much larger step forward to lessen our impact on the environment. In late July 2007, JBDG, Inc began undertaking a precedent-setting project for small business owners in the Northwest; the installation of a 10kW photovoltaic array. This project covers a large amount of the electrical use of our facility - depending on time of year, between 350 to 1000 kWh monthly. Even better, once all of the rebates and tax incentives are factored in, the project will pay for itself in approximately 10 years. Not bad, considering the panels have a 30-year lifetime.
Frequently Asked Questions: Click on topic to expand: "How much energy will a 10kw solar array in Seattle generate?"
In its first year of operation, we've generated a bit over 7 megawatt hours of electricity from the sun. As we better understand and optimize operation of our equipment, we're estimating just under 10 megawatt hours annually (or 10,000 kWh). That's the equivalent of consuming 1154 watts constantly for a year.
"How long can you operate without grid-power?"
It all depends on how much we have turned on and operating.
We have 8 extremely large and heavy batteries that'll give us a total of 1800 amp hours of backup electricity. Each battery weighs 157 pounds, for a total of 1256lbs of batteries. We're operating two separate, redundant solar arrays and inverters side-by-side. Each are capable of 5kw of AC electricity. One system runs our workstations, while the other is dedicated to the servers and building systems. If we power down our server operations to give only the bare necessities, we can keep operational over prolonged periods of natural disaster and outages. We don't backup the entire office on our batteries. A dozen outlets throughout the facility, duct fans, and our servers are tied directly into the battery backup system. With the solar panels charging during the day, we can operate indefinitely, year round and keep the building heated in during any extreme weather condition. Quite the benefit for our locally unstable electrical grid.
"What equipment do you use?"
"Will solar ever pay off for you?"
The simple reply is, yes!
Coming to a final number is always a little bit of a guessing game. The main fouling point in cost estimations is how much electrical rates will increase over the next decade or two. The total installed cost of our system is $96,797. That's a little on the high side, since with went with a large battery backup. We consider the battery bank to be a building backup system. Because of that, and the limited life of the consumable batteries, we operate that portion at a loss and do not consider it to be part of our PV array, as it's charged from the grid and only trickle charged by the PV array. Without the batteries, the installed cost of the PV panels, wiring, inverter and grid-intertie is closer to $88,000
Since this is a commercial install, JBDG, Inc. is eligible for an instant 30% federal tax credit worth $29,000. Accelerated depreciation over 5 years will also cut nearly $22,000 out of the cost of the system. Annually, we'll save $2,100 in electrical costs, state production credit and green tags.
Assuming zero electrical cost increases, we're estimating our hard payback in year 17, in 2024. With historical rate increases, the payback is closer to 13 years. Here's an excel spreadsheet we've created to estimate the payback period for our system. The system's panels are warranted to last until 2032.
We hope this system will set an example for other businesses, proving that solar power makes sense even in a city as far North as Seattle. We hope they will follow our lead and help ensure America's energy independence.
© Johnson Braund Design Group, Inc. |
