1.2MW solar plant installed at University of Toledo

March 16, 2010

The University will buy power from the 1.2MW plant through a 20-year power purchase agreement

The University of Toledo has switched to solar power, with the installation of a 1.12-megawatt ground-mounted plant at its Scott Park Campus of Energy & Innovation.

The system was installed by Advanced Distributed Generation LLC (ADG), a company based locally in Toledo, Ohio, while the solar photovoltaic panels have been supplied by Oregon firm PV Powered, Inc.

Baltimore company Constellation Energy Projects & Services is to own and operate the facility, selling the electricity to the University under a 20-year power purchase agreement.

PV Powered said the plant incorporated a combination of 260-kilowatt and 100kW inverters connected in a performance-monitoring network.

Keith Dandridge, Project Manager at ADG, which operates in Northwest Ohio, Southeast Michigan and throughout the Midwest, said his company had used PV Powered inverters since they were “cost-effective and highly reliable”.

Mr Dandridge said: “We like the inverters’ simplistic and rugged design, and the responsiveness and quality of PV Powered’s technical support exceeds that of any other inverter company that we’ve dealt with.”

Commenting on the Toledo project, PV Powered’s Vice President of Marketing and Sales Erick Petersen said the key to making long-term power purchase agreements financially viable was using inverter technologies that maximize the energy harvest in the long term.

Mr Petersen said: “An intense focus on engineering high reliability into our products has enabled us to be first in the industry to offer 10-year warranties standard and optional 20-year warranties nationwide.”