SEM’s Kyra Moore has written an article for the latest issue of Home Power Magazine talking about our project at Piedmont Biofuels.
Piedmont Biofuels has become an incubator for sustainable enterprises in North Carolina. Its industrial park now serves as a home for its biodiesel facility (see HP122 and HP132), the Abundance Foundation’s off-grid office (see HP145), the Piedmont Biofarm, and several other developing businesses. It also is now home to a solar “double-cropping” project — lands that simultaneously produce energy from the sun and crops grown under three PV canopies that sit above an agricultural field.
“We need clean energy, and we need sustainable food,” says Lyle Estill of Piedmont Biofuels. “This installation will enable both.” The harmonious project between energy and land was orchestrated and financed by Miraverse Power and Light owned by Michael and Amy Tiemann. The Tiemanns recently opened a recording studio called Manifold Recording and, although the PV system is located a few miles away, the system size was determined and designed with the goal of making the recording studio carbon-neutral. The system will offset all of the studio’s energy consumption and, says Michael Tiemann, “it will do it without removing any land from agricultural production.” The shade the array provides will benefit the crops during the hot North Carolina summers.
Southern Energy Management (SEM), a North Carolina-based installer, put in the system. David Boynton of SEM, along with brothers Lyle and Glen Estill, designed the system with both energy- and vegetable production goals in mind. PVsyst modeling software was used to predict energy output, while 3D modeling analyzed shade throughout the year. SEM determined that a 92 kW system on three large canopies would be best for energy production and achieving the proper sun-to-shade ratio.
High-efficiency SunPower modules were wired into 36 strings of eight modules each. The design uses 12 SMA America inverters instead of a single central inverter. SunPower’s commercial monitoring system helps keep tabs on the array’s performance.
Click here to read the entire article at Home Power Magazine.
