Back to school with Active Array

Posted by: Simon In Photovoltaic

We’ve a forthcoming 50kW solar system on St George’s School in Harpenden and, working with the school, have chosen panels from a new British company, Active Array. The 200 panel array is going on their very impressive Sports Hall and will not only provide a huge amount of it’s energy, it will add a revenue stream to the school for the next 20 years. The educational benefits are enormous too; from simply setting a good example in the formative minds of the next generation to providing complex, real time data that can be used by students in various branches of their studies.

The 250W Active Array panels have a junction box that sends data using RF to a combiner box which publishes it, via a router, to the web. This not only allows continuous monitoring of the whole site, it allows every single panel to be examined – if a football is kicked onto the roof and rolls to a stop alongside panel 187, we’ll be able to report the problem to the site office and have it removed. This live stream of data can be exported into other programs and we hope will provide complex, relevant material for the school’s budding scientists and mathematicians. We’re excited about working with this new technology and with this new high-tech British company who are supporting us with the IT side of the installation.