PV Solar System - First year results

This is a press release of IDA International Inc.

Derby, CT (March 29, 2010) - IDA International Inc. today announced the results from 1 year of operating a photo-voltaic system at its facility in Derby, CT.

You can read the unveiling "operational" announcement of the system here. Data points:

• First year operations period 2009-Mar-23 thru 2010-Mar-23.
• System size is 525 photo-voltaic panels with a 100kw DC to AC inverter.
• Generated 111,266kwh of electricity, thus providing in excess of all consumption needs for operations on-site.
• Single day record of 695kwh was set on 2009-May-19.
• Nine months had more electricity production than consumed by operations, the exceptions were Nov, Dec, Jan.
• Based on data from the EPA for our electricity provider (United Illuminating), this clean generation avoided 103,032 lbs of carbon dioxide, 263 lbs of sulfer dioxide and 96lbs of nitrogen oxide from polluting the air.
• The "credits" from our renewable energy generation (as opposed to generation from coal or gas) were sold to the Ct. Clean Energy Fund.

See how clean the electricity you consume is via this EPA webpage.

Contact: thomas.harbinson@ida-intl.com

Sunny St Patrick's Day

Today provided an opportunity to illustrate just what a sunny day is like in it's impact on the earth.

Our Photo-Voltaic Solar Array records all it's statistics on a server every 5 minutes. This data can then be analyzed, or for today's purposes graphed. If any educator / researcher would like the raw log data, please contact me via email.

Data:
PV System size: 525 panels.
Inverter capacity: 100kw DC to AC.
Date: 2010/Mar/17 (St Patrick's Day)
Weather: Clear, no clouds, high temperature in the 60's.
Begin civil twilight 6:33 a.m
Sunrise 7:01 a.m.
Sun transit 1:01 p.m.
Sunset 7:01 p.m.
End civil twilight 7:29 p.m.
Electricity Creation begin 7:04 a.m.
Peak Generation (88.8kw) 1:39 p.m.
Electricity Creation stop 7:09 p.m.
Total Electricity for day 597kwh

Sunny Statistics

The PV Solar System is currently down for repairs.

During the heavy snowstorm of late February, a disruption to our array occurred. The direct current generation was "off" and caused the inverter to trip a fuse (as it would normally do to protect it's electronics). The system as a whole has worked well with little down time since it's installation nearly a year ago. There were 8 days in 2009 where the system as whole was non-functional. Circuit boards in the inverter, or power outages from the grid caused such lack of output. Note that I don't say mis-function, as when their is a power outage, our PV Solar System will not push energy into the grid.

In 2009 electric year (2008Dec18 thru 2009Dec16):

• Our system was in place for 269 days (8 of which there was no production).
• The average system output over those days was 343kwh/day.
• The average consumption of our operations in that same period was 301kwh/day.
• Highest daily electricity generation was May19 with 695kwh.

November and December were the only months that the PV Solar System didn't generate more than our entire operations electricity consumption. Overall since operational, there has been more electricity generated from the sun than is needed to power all our lights, computers, and equipment in the entire office and manufacturing plant. Since 114% of consumption was generated from a "renewable energy" source, state regulations require that the excess kwh be carried forward as a "credit" on the utility account, to be drawn down upon in a future billing period.