Fort Nelson Secondary School
Carmanah was awarded a grant from the Government of British Columbia Ministry of Energy and Mines to develop and launch a Solar 4 Schools program. The first phase of the program took place at Fort Nelson Secondary School in July 2005 with a 10kW solar system installation.
The school’s 10kW solar system, comprised of 98 Evergreen 102 watt panels and 4 Xantrex GT3.0 Power Inverters was installed on the rooftop of the school with a non-penetrating roof mount. This system will generate about 10,000 kWh of electricity per year, which is enough energy to light three classrooms, run 50 computers or an average household. The greenhouse gas offsets are equivalent to planting 7.5 acres of forest.
The solar system is also equipped with educational computer software known as a “Data Acquisition System.” This data monitoring system, designed specifically for grid-tied photovoltaics, displays instantaneous performance data, information and diagrams on the PV system’s details, such as daily CO2 reduction and kWh production. View the detailed system overview for this project on our Flickr page.