San Diego Unified School District Photovoltaic Installation
San Diego Unified School District Photovoltaic Installation
Client: Town of Silver City
Location: San Diego, CA
Lopez Engineering, Inc (LEI) worked as a subcontractor for Main Street Power Company, Inc. and assembled a team to design photovoltaic (PV) systems for the San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD) in San Diego, California.
LEI designed roof-mounted, grid-tied, PV systems for 31 separate campus sites, which included elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, and district operation buildings. These PV systems ranged in size from 29 kW to 366 kW. The combined PV system size for the entire district was 3.3 MW.
Each PV system was comprised of 230 W photovoltaic panels with a micro-inverter installed at each panel. This eliminated the need for DC wiring and large, stand-alone inverters that would need to be individually sized for each campus and building. The PV systems could also easily be expanded to include additional PV panels without replacing existing inverters.
The PV systems were designed per CEC, SDUSD, and San Diego Gas and Electric (SDGE) standards. Electrical Points of Connection were evaluated to determine if the existing electrical distribution system had capacity to accommodate the additional current that would be introduced by the new PV systems. Depending on the system size, the PV systems were either connected to the building distribution panel (load side connection), or were connected to the campus distribution switchboard upstream of the electrical meter (line side connection). Electrical meters were installed for the PV systems to measure system output for both the Electrical Utility company (SDGE) as well as meters for the Owner (SDUSD) to track PV power production.
LEI provided Construction Administration to attend construction coordination meetings, review electrical submittals, answer Requests for Information (RFIs), perform periodic Site Observations and prepared As-Built Record Drawings.