Blog

new post

We have power, have passed inspections and are generating electricity

posted 7:59 AM Tuesday, October 06, 2009 by jjsimon

After many days of hard work, the team can see the end in sight. Yesterday was a productive day that ended with many inspections passed. 

Coming towards the end of Saturday night, we were close to finishing the install of the solar panels and 4 students decided to push through until we were done. As we are mounting 40 panels on a 45 degree metal roof is no easy task. Using heavy safety gear mounted to the roof to protect the team in the case of a fall, the team had to attach S-5! Clips to each seam that would eventually hold each panel. Able to be mounted to the roof without any penetrations, the product offers a clean and simple solution for attaching solar  to a roof that will outlast the life of the panels. 

In the morning, the rest of the team awoke and arrived on site to complete the remaining construction tasks that would require power tools before we became grid tied. We built the cover to the planters, built a stand to hold our water and extra plants and placed all of the landscaping. We started cleaning the interiors and doing final plumbing. We also had our water delivered to our site that will be used in the competition. 

Part of the steps to the beginning of the competition is passing required code compliance so that we can be sure the students and the public will be safe. Yesterday, we had the Department Of Energy officials look at our electrical, mechanical, plumbing, and structual construction and we passed. 

At around 8 o'clock, the organizers came to our house and turned on the electricity into the house. At this point, we are being tracked until the competition begins and we have to make sure that we do not use more energy than we produce. 

Consequently, the team finally got to leave the mall at a decent hour and had a night of relaxation.

Now, we are on our way out once again. We look forward to the beginning of the actual competition in just a few days.

Quick update - I just walked onto our site and our panels have been successfully producing power today, more than we have used so far.

Comments

post a comment