US energy storage designer and manufacturer SimpliPhi Energy has installed a combination of solar PV and batteries to power air-conditioning units at a school in Hawaii, with a further 1.4MWh of such projects in the pipeline.
In May 2016, Hawaii State’s Department of Education (HIDOE) brought into legislature a commitment to add air-conditioning to 1,000 classrooms across Hawaii, with the US$100 million Heat Abatement Program for public schools created to fast-track projects. The 1,000 classroom goal was reached in August, but the programme continues to add new units.
According to HIDOE, many of its schools are more than 50 years old and were never designed with the kind of electrical load needed to run air-conditioning in mind. A HIDOE fact sheet on the Heat Abatement Program says that the department annually spends US$48 million on electricity and cited the example of one school’s new AC-unit and said that it doubled power costs at Pohakea Elementary School.
Solar-plus-storage has now been put forward as an economical solution to power those air-conditioning units, allowing schools to control the long-term costs of their energy. Waialua High and Intermediate School, on the island of Oahu, is now being fitted with a system designed by Ameresco Solar, a developer and designer of PV systems headquartered in Arizona. Ameresco and SimpliPhi worked with local solar system integrator Haleakala Solar to execute the project.
“Bringing sustainable cooling relief to students in Hawaii was a problem we knew required innovation on several levels, including how to manage the up front and long-term costs of these systems and how to work with the limited electrical infrastructure on these campuses,” Ameresco senior account executive Richard Dean said.
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