Moving with the clouds

I wrote earlier about my colored preschool water initiative* which reminded me of my solar panel plan. About 25 years ago, when solar panels where quite rare, I devised a scheme aimed at our preschool and elementary students. The scheme would have made us the first school in the state to have a solar array, but instead of being economically-driven, my motivations were educational.

I obtained six PV panels from a distributor, with an inverter and other bits and pieces. The plan was to install them on one wall of the main building, over several classroom windows as window shades thereby reducing the hot and bright midday sun which flooded into those classrooms. Any power generated would be fed into the school's wiring to support HVAC demand in particular using the magic of volunteer electrical-engineer parents and donated labor.

Part Two, which is what held us up, was that I wanted a large-ish analog display in the school's main entrance. Small digital displays were available, but I wanted something big, clearly visible and understandable to three year-old minds thus a needle and dial. This was to be built and donated by another of the school's parents. 

The idea was that students could see the current generation in real-time, including the difference between 8am and mid-afternoon and what happens when a cloud moves in front of the sun. They could also record date form the digital display, create tables and graphs, calculate kwh and averages etc. With this increased student interest and enthusiasm, we had various plans for the science club and for middle school science in years ahead, and or field trips to the city's electrical utilities and power generations plants. 

Actually, it was more like Part One (a) which held us up as we needed to have city permit approval. In those days, battery-storage was not really available or affordable although we did consider racks of old car batteries but got stuck on how to retrieve that power. So we either had to set up an isolated mini-grid, or connect to the school's network.

We had the designs, the drawings, the wires and clips and all was ready to go, pending the big clock. Then the school moved to a new location, and we had to start again with new landlord permissions and I then left the school. Last I heard, the school has six 25 year-old solar panels in the back of a closet.

**Please leave comments and queries below.**

Further Reading

*Yellow and red water with glitter