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F&S has renewed our campus' recognition as a Green Power Partner for FY20 through the Environmental Protection Agency. This voluntary program promotes the use of green power, and the combined supply for the Champaign-Urbana campus during FY20 was 7.2% of the total electricity usage.
Please see the attached file to see a more in-depth look at the green power supplied and generated on campus
The TRT User Manual based on Energy Farm is now available via two campus links:
For this month's progress, the fence has been installed and the statistics are as follows:
191 rows with motors and partial torque tubes.
103 with all torque tubes and ready for panels.
79 rows of panels.
These numbers are included in each other, i.e., the 103 is included in the 191 and the 79 is included in the 103.
Thank you,
Sushanth Girini
Management Engineer,
Facilities & Services,
UES-Utility Distribution, UIUC
The meter tracking production of the solar thermal panels on the ARC stopped working. When investigated, we found that the controller was replaced a while back and the incorrect program was loaded. This caused the HW MBTU TOT to no longer totalize. The programming is being fixed and should be totalizing properly. Next month we should see good data resulting from this repair.
According to the Solar Energy Industries Association, solar power is the fastest-growing energy source in the U.S. and this growth will continue to rise. At the moment, only a few states have adopted solar PV end-of-life handling policies. Thus, a lot of modules may end up in landfills. The panel discussion will be on barriers, policies, and sustainable opportunities for end-of-life PV modules.
Sustainable Issues and Opportunities for Handling End-of-Life PV Modules
October 22, 9:30–11 am
Jennifer Martin • Illinois Sustainable Technology Center
This opportunity is available online.
Applications are now being accepted for time on Blue Waters supercomputer. One of the world's most powerful computing systems, more than 16 million node-hours were allocated to campus projects over the last year. This is the final year of operations; submission deadline is November 2.
--From: https://emails.illinois.edu/newsletter/1581349436.html
According to the Solar Energy Industries Association, solar power is the fastest-growing energy source in the U.S. and this growth will continue to rise. At the moment, only a few states have adopted solar PV end-of-life handling policies. Thus, a lot of modules may end up in landfills. The panel discussion will be on barriers, policies, and sustainable opportunities for end-of-life PV modules.
October 22, 9:30–11 am
Jennifer Martin • Illinois Sustainable Technology Center
SOLAR FARM 2.0 CONSTRUCTION UNDERWAY
Construction started on the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign’s Solar Farm 2.0 in August, with a commercial operation date expected for early 2021. The new 54-acre, 12.1 megawatt (MWdc) solar array is located north of Curtis Road, between First Street and U.S. Route 45, next to the Village of Savoy. Once completed, the solar farm will produce 20,000 MWh annually, almost tripling the university’s existing on-site renewable energy generation. Through a combination of utility-scale installations, integrated facility rooftop arrays, and wind power purchase agreements, clean power usage at the U of I will increase to more than 52,000 MWh per year, which is over 10 percent of the campus electrical demand. Faculty have already identified research projects that will use the Solar Farm 2.0 installation, primarily related to the pollinator-supportive plants under and around the panels.
RNG is available, but production is very scarce. Bp is going to be hosting a customer webinar on Carbon Offsets Natural Gas (CONG) and RNG offerings in the near future.
Per Rob Roman, Director of Utilities and Energy Services, noted that when he worked at the University of Illinois Chicago, they tried to buy bio-gas and ran into supply issues.
Upon inquiry from Morgan White, Mike Larson provided this update:
One additional website that may be of interest is the attached from the EPA.
https://www.epa.gov/lmop/project-and-landfill-data-state
Landfill gas is the most prevalent form of renewable gas that I am aware of. I asked Kinect about the use of biogas last year, and at the time they were not aware of anyone producing biogas and injecting it into the gas pipeline. Most installations that I am aware of are point of use applications. It costs quite a bit of money to pressurize the natural gas and inject it into the pipeline and the quantities are not huge, so most installations install a generator at the site and use the bio-gas to generate onsite. I am not an expert in this market by any stretch, but that is my general understanding of how it is used.
I will inquire again from Kinect, but I am not aware of any biogas being available to purchase, and as such I also do not know about the premium to purchase.
Mike Larson
Associate Director of Utilities Production, Facilities and Services
Please see the attached newletter, published by Inovateus Solar, that includes a piece on the University of Illinois' Solar Farm 2.0.
Additional rooftop solar was installed on the Business Instructional Facility (BIF) in summer 2019. The construction drawings called for 19 solar PV panels rated 200-360W, with microinverters, with a fixed tilt for each panel ranging from 21 to 40 degrees off the roofing surface.
RailSplitter Wind Farm provided the September 2020 Buyer's Share amounts by hour, totaling 1,359.7 Megawatt hours. See attached file.
Lauren Kumle, Tess Sobol, Jaboc Heglund, and Tommy Robey in CEE 493 - Sustainable Design Engineering Technology worked with Dr. Andy Stumpf in Fall 2020 on a Deep Direct Use (DDU) geothermal proposal for north campus.
Dr. Stumpf provided this information to the team in September:
If your team is interested, you might consider a different technology for geothermal energy at Newmark Civil Engineering Laboratory. Specifically a deep direct-use (DDU) geothermal energy system (GES). I suggest this because I am not certain there is enough ground space at Newmark for a geothermal borefield like at CIF. The advantages of DDU GES is it requires fewer wells, and there would be enough thermal energy extracted to condition space in multiple buildings. Essentially, the DDU GES comprises extraction and injection wells (likely 2 of each needed) to access geothermal fluids (brine) from deeper bedrock formations. Under campus, one of the potential bedrock formations, the St. Peter Sandstone, lies at ~2,000 feet depth and contains an abundant amount of fluid at 78-82°F. When I last talked to Professor Liang Liu (who recently retired from College of Engineering), he was very interested in a study for DDU GES for the Engineering quad (south of Grainger library). So I think your findings from this type of system would be timely and more likely to be implemented.
My colleagues and I just completed a feasibility study of DDU GES for six agricultural research facilities on the South Farms (see summary paper attached).
The focus was on the deeper Mt. Simon Sandstone (lying at >6000 feet depth) because we were interested in extracting the hottest brine (110-130°F) since some of the farms needed to make hot water. They are not connected to the steam and hot/cold water energy system servicing the main part of campus, so propane and natural gas are the primary fuels. However, the St. Peter Sandstone would be an alternative… and this formation is also being considered for cooling buildings.
If you are interested in looking at DDU for the Newmark site, I can share the report with you. It should contain much of the information you need. Some of colleagues can help you with the life cycle costs and mechanical energy system analyses. Completing this project would also help researchers on campus compete for funding from DOE to complete tests wells which will be needed to validate your findings. DOE is very interested in developing DDU GES in non-volcanic areas of the US, especially for district-energy systems. Cornell University just received funding from DOE for a test well to develop a DDU GES on their campus, but they will most likely have to drill >15,000 feet into the Precambrian granite develop the system. They are looking to generate electricity with very hot water. https://eos.org/science-updates/exploring-by-boring-geothermal-wells-as-research-tools.
Doing a rough calculation, I think constructing a DDU GES would be of similar cost to a shallow borefield with 50-100 wells. The DDU GES would be much more efficient since you are directly using the heated brine and not trying to conduct heat in the ground. The payback period would be much quicker since it will be servicing more than one building.
On 9/25/2020, Lauren, Tommy, and Jacob met with Dr. Stumpf. He provided the following update:
I had a meeting with Lauren Jacob and Tommy today about their design project. I suggested they look at a DDU system that would heat/cool 4 buildings (Newmark, DCL, Uni High, and Siebel Center). I guess the number of buildings will depend on the amount of energy that can be extracted from the geothermal reservoir. I also suggested they look at the shallowest reservoir, the St. Peter Sandstone. As part of their analysis, they indicated there is a need for building level energy use data.
The Solar Farm 2.0 construction is on schedule to be in service by 1/28/2021. Currently the project is installing approximately 4,400 posts in ground for the panel foundations. One of key objectives is to complete the Golden Row* by end of this month. Once the golden row is completed, inspected, and approved, the construction will be in full force to reach completion. The university is scheduled to perform routine inspections and capture all the underground equipment GPS points for reference. A recycling plan is in place, and the project is coordinating with F&S Transportation to collect the recyclable waste. The installation of a utility switch on the east side of the farm is complete.
Procurement: We have received all the racking equipment and about 80% of the solar panel on site. Transformers and inverters are scheduled to be delivered by end of Oct 2020.
~by Sushanth Girini, management engineer at F&S Utilities and Energy Services
* Golden Row - is a single row of solar panel constructed by the construction crew. Once the project make sure all the connections are good and row is as per design, it gets approved. It's like a start of what's coming. Like a movie trailer!
RailSplitter Wind Farm provided the August 2020 Buyer's Share amounts by hour, totaling 731.2 Megawatt hours. See attached file.
Sol Systems and F&S hosted visitors from Illinois State University today, to initiate development of a Virtual Reality tour of Solar Farm 2.0. The intention is to develop a walking path that will be repeated by the camerawoman at four key timeframes this fall: post installation, tracker installation, module installation, and electrical installation.
Check out this online camera of the Solar Farm 2.0 site: https://app.oxblue.com/open/inovateus/northerncardinal.
Now we can watch it progress from our computer screens!
Fun times, Morgan
