The Schatz Center roof goes solar

On the last weekend of September, HSU and Schatz Center alumnus Nate Coleman returned to Humboldt State with a team of solar professionals to lead the installation of a photovoltaic array on the roof of the Schatz Energy Research Center. Dodging between downpours, and assisted by Center staff, students, and HSU Facilities Management personnel, the team heroically completed the installation in two days.

The system is now complete except for the final electrical connections and an inspection, and should be live near the end of October. The 20 kilowatt (DC) array will produce an average of 57 kilowatt-hours per day, enough to completely power the Center’s new West Wing, with 25 kWh left over to power the main building.

The eighty modules of the solar array and the proprietary mounting hardware and connectors were donated to Humboldt State from Zep Solar through the efforts of Coleman and Jack West — a member of the Center’s Advisory Board and also an alumnus of the university.

Later this year, an array display will be installed outside the Center. Visitors will be able to see a live report of energy generated by the array, plus rooftop weather data that directly impacts array efficiency: solar radiation, air temperature and relative humidity, wind speed and direction, and the temperature of the modules. The monitor will also feature project news from the Schatz Center and data from the onsite EV charging station. The interpretive display has been funded by HEIF, the student-run Humboldt Energy Independence Fund, and NorthCAT, the Northern California Center for Alternative Transportation Fuels and Advanced Vehicle Technologies. HEIF also provided the instrumentation for the data acquisition system.

The Schatz Solar Array installation team included:

• Solar professionals: Brian Atchley, Greg Ball, Nate Coleman, Marcelo Macedo, and Ryan Woodward
• HSU Facilities: Charles Day, Travis Fleming, Ray Robinson, and Brian Toroni
• Students: Anh Bui, Carisse Geronimo, Chih-Wei Hsu, Craig Mitchell, and Anamika Singh
• Schatz staff: Charles Chamberlin, Nick Lam, Peter Lehman, Marc Marshall, Kyle Palmer, Rich Williams, and Jim Zoellick