Arts Center Begins Energy Monitoring
Monday, July 26, 2010 at 03:43PM by Joah Bussert 
5.4.7 Arts Center
Last month, the 5.4.7 Arts Center made a big change in their renewable energy generating system. With a grant provided by The University of Kansas Energy Council, the Center has employed the services of Enphase Energy, a solar energy company based out of Petaluma, CA, to improve the efficiency of their 1.5 kilowatt solar array. One of the most exciting features of Enphase’s services is the energy monitoring capabilities that the company provides. Click here to go to the Art Center monitoring page and see how the panels are performing right now.
The Arts Center is now able to track the performance of each individual solar panel with real-time data. This will give them a better idea of how much energy the panels are providing for the building over the course of each day, week, month and year. It will also allow them to track the efficiency of each panel and quickly identify any problems that may come up. This is an excellent educational tool as well, as the data provided puts the energy savings into understandable and measurable comparisons. As of June 16, when they began monitoring the panels, they have produced enough energy to power 829 light bulbs or run 274 computers for one day.
How it works:
In the original design executed by Studio 804 (the architecture graduate students at the University of Kansas who designed and built the structure) the wind turbines and solar panels were set up to be a battery-based system. This made sense at the time, as the City of Greensburg was still getting the power grid up and running and there was no direct power to the building. The original design allowed the Arts Center to generate and store power in a bank of batteries. In the building's early days it served both as an arts facility and as a meeting place for community groups, as there were few other viable buildings in town. Now that Greensburg has all of its utilities in place, including net-metering capabilities, the Arts Center made the decision to pull their solar panels off of the battery system and tie it directly to the electric grid.
One of the installed microinverters
To do so they teamed up with Enphase Energy, which manufactures and sells a unique product called a microinverter that directly converts the sun’s energy into usable electricity, while at the same time increasing the energy harvest of the solar panels by up to 25 percent. The microinverters are easy to install onto existing PV panels by simply pluging them in and running a grounding wire, with each panel receiving its own unit. Each microinverter is then connected to its neighbor in a way similar to connecting strings of Christmas lights, and tied in directly to the Art Center’s electrical panel. Any time the sun is shining in Greensburg, the building is receiving and using free electricity directly from Mother Nature. When the Center isn’t in use, any energy the solar panels produce is sold back to the City and 5.4.7 receives a credit on their utility bill.
Be sure to head over to the 5.4.7 Arts Center monitoring page hosted by Enphase and explore all the cool features.
Photo Credits: Top, Joah Bussert. Middle and bottom, Chris Christensen
Reader Comments (5)
Hello I notice the enough energy to power 829 light bulbs or run 274 computers . IF I told you that instead of 274 I had the means for those 274 computer seats to be reduced that to 10 computers providing independent computing for 300 people at the same time with 90 percent less energy use would you contact me ? If you PY cell arrange is powering 274 separate CPUs we could certainly increase the good of your PV cell investment by an incredible amount.
I am Eastern Canadian Sales Manager for Canada's largest Green computing company Blue Curl Technologies. We created Canada's first Carbon Netural Computer School Lab in Langley British Columbia.
Thanks Paul Taylor
jans are you referring to my post? Here is the Deal . IF the pv arrange is large enough to power 270 plus desktop computers then it has enough power to to supply 270 times 30 virtual desktop seats . The technology is out there and it is called Ncomputing. You can either increase the number of computer seats via a thin client or you can reduce greatly the use of CPUs to have surplus power from this arrange. Even as a seller I prefer covering the 270 plus with a virtual desktop solution and then using the surplus Green Energy for other things . Yes financially it would be great to sell over 6000 terminal devices but is it indeed really needed.
Paul, that message from jans was spam and has been removed. Let me address the first question you posted. The 274 computer figure is just an example of the energy that has been saved by the solar panels on the Arts Center roof as of June 16, 2010. As of today they have saved enough energy to power 526 computers. It has nothing to do with actually running computers, it is just an example to demonstrate to people how much energy has been saved through the use of the solar panels.
ok I understand it now. the project is not actually using that many computers it is the amount of power that would have to be generated to run a said number of computers that is now being generated by the PV Panels.
At any time if there are computing needs please looking into Ncomputing or LG Network Monitors for multiple computers.
I have no way for gaining financially in the US by this advice as there are channel partners in your area I am sure. The Transformers boasting the efficiency of your PV panels is noted and appreciated as I do have a number of projects that solar cells are being used.
Thank you for posting this article, I was unfamiliar with Enphase Energy tools, it looks like they have a fairly decent system set up for monitoring renewable energy sources in real-time and broadcasting those results to a web-browser. Although this is fantastic I almost feel like part of the puzzle is missing. Without the rest of the buildings energy consumption it leaves me to wonder if this is a total picture.
It is possible that I just missed this function, if not though, I would suggest you seriously consider the Continuous Energy Management and Optimization (CEMO) software that Forward Energy Solutions offers. Not only does it supply real-time web based monitoring of your renewable sources but it can also give you a full picture of your entire buildings consumption. Check it out online at Continuous Energy Management and Optimization