Greenhouse Energy Feasibility Study

Two years ago one of the biology teachers at my school asked me about the recently built greenhouse. They needed a pump for an irrigation system, but that meant adding another electric appliance, and would it be possible to install some kind of renewable power source right there at the greenhouse? Like a windmill, or solar panels, or something.

So I took it to the kids: What kind of renewable energy source should we install here? They broke into groups, did some research and came back with some calculations around energy, electricity, and power (thank you Vermont Framework of Standards!) and also a recommendation as to whether or not this would be a good option for us here at the school.

They ended up presenting their findings to the principal, head custodian, the original bio teacher, and the service learning coordinator. The class consensus discussed there with all these stakeholders was that we ought to pursue a photovoltaic system to power not just the irrigation pump, but all the electric appliances in the greenhouse (computer, fans, etc.), to which the administration replied, "if you can find the money!" :)

(Later that week in the Ben & Jerry's Free Cone Day line a parent of one of my students came up to me and said, "I'm on the Montpelier Energy Team and we need to talk". Woe. Ok. And basically he invited me to bring my class to present at the next energy team meeting!)

(Then the fine people at Knowles Science Teaching Foundation heard about the project, they flew two students and I out to Chicago to be a main presenter at their summer fellow's meeting!)

So the next year was called writing a million grants (ok, maybe just a few), but we got some of them (Vermont Community Foundation, Toshiba America Grant, MHS Boosters, etc.), and by the time the next school year was out we'd raised enough money. So a team from Solar Works, Inc. donated their time and worked alongside a team of students from that year on the installation.

And Now... Today... I feel some amount of confidence in the data output system. Fronius collects the data and displays it on this website, which I've found slightly difficult to navigate, but we've got data there for AC power, ambient temperature, module temperature, irradiance, and wind speed. We had a few glitches - it wasn't recording data for a few days towards the end of November, but it should be working now... even though output is extremely low and intermittent right now since they're smothered with snow.

If the above link asks you, the
login: student
password: greenhousepv

Then go to the tab PV Systems, then select Montpelier High School Greenhouse under Third Party Systems, then select Archive over on the left to see all the logged data about wind speed, AC power, etc. And I'll leave you to mess about with it to figure out the navigation. Happy surfing! :)