Solar Washington

21 Acres Center 25.6kW Photovoltaic System

With Mt. Rainier to the south and the entrance to the new 21 Acres Center for Local Food and Sustainable Living to the north, one cannot help but be awed by the roof-to-roof coverage of the 25.6kW solar energy system!  21 Acres is a non-profit organization committed to supporting sustainable, local food systems through its school, commercial kitchen and farm market with an eye on changing the conventional food system landscape.The innovative facility is designed to LEED standards targeting a platinum rating. The design incorporates numerous energy and water conservation features to reduce the overall impact of the built environment on human health and our natural environment.

From the facility’s initial conceptualization over six years ago, the incorporation of renewable energy was never a question for 21 Acres, but rather, how large would the array need to be to offset 10% of their consumption. The initial design included both photovoltaic and solar hot water. After assessing the needs of the facility it was determined that the water usage was small, not justifiable for a solar hot water system. Instead, more PV panels were added to reach their production goal. To meet this goal, 21 Acres partnered with Sunergy Systems back in 2007 for the system design and all the way through the building’s completion last fall.

The 25.6kW solar electric system consists of 256 Day4 Energy 48MC photovoltaic modules and 4 SMA Inverters. The system incorporates sophisticated monitoring and reporting of real time data. Through funding received from a PSE Renewable Energy Education grant, students from Cascadia Community College used this data to create a digital display of both solar electricity generation and building power consumption (see live real time data). These monitoring devices make the system a great educational tool for interpreting how environmental conditions affect the system’s efficiency and performance.