Ypsi Solar City Hall update

I just received the following update from Ypsi Solar’s Dave Strenski and thought that I’d pass it along:

Ypsilanti’s City Hall solar graphs are now online. You can find the graphs here. Many thanks to EMU student Nik Estep for doing a wonderful job on the SolarYpsi.org website… As expected, the solar panels are only supplying a small part of the energy for a running City Hall, but we come close to 50% solar powered during the noon part of the day when City Hall is closed. Hopefully, with a little more conservation, we can export a little power during the weekends.

solarcityhall3We also have the display system up and running in the lobby of City Hall. This system turns itself on every morning and shuts itself off every evening. It’s connected to the internet via Wireless Ypsi and the graphs are the same as the one on the SolarYpsi.org website. Thanks to Steve Pierce and HDL for the wireless access and hosting the website. The display cycles through the daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly graphs every few minutes. We still have a small glitch in the size of the graphs on the display in the lobby, but hope to have it resolved soon. If you every see something wrong/funny with the display please let me know so we can fix it.

The project is more or less finished and I again thank everyone involved that made it happen. I also hope to make a presentation to City Council some Tuesday evening to formally hand over ownership to the City of Ypsilanti, explain a few details about how the system works, and answer any questions. City Council also needs to decide whether they want to sell their energy credits to DTE through the SolarCurrent’s program, and collect about $6000 plus an additional 11 cents per generated KWH. I propose we do this, and make another solar installation, perhaps at DPW’s offices on Forest. We are also working on getting some State of Michigan officals to come to a dedicate the system.

We are now focused on installing 30 panels on the Ypsilanti Food Cooperative’s River Street Bakery. We hope to have those panels online in the fall if not sooner.

Congratulations to Dave and the whole Ypsi Solar team. It never ceases to amaze me what this community of ours can accomplish when it puts its mind to something.

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3 Comments

  1. Glen S.
    Posted April 18, 2010 at 6:35 pm | Permalink

    Congratulations to Dave for having the vision, and to him and others for having the persistence to make it a reality. Despite its modest scope, I hope this project will enhance Ypsilanti’s growing reputation as a progressive community, and send a powerful message about our commitment to building a more sustainable future.

  2. Edward
    Posted April 19, 2010 at 8:08 am | Permalink

    Somewhat related…….

    This year, the Ann Arbor-Ypsilanti Earth Day Festival will be held at Washtenaw Community College on Sunday, April 25th, from 12noon until 4pm. This location is conveniently right off the Border To Border non-motorized trail, which means residents of both Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti can bicycle right to the Festival on off-road, paved paths. And when you do arrive at the Festival on your bike, the Washtenaw Bicycling and Walking Coalition will be providing free, guarded valet bike parking.

    The Earth Day Festival will be at Washtenaw Community College’s Morris Lawrence building, on the east side of the campus, and marked “ML” on http://www.wccnet.edu/about-us/visiting/. For maps on the Border To Border Trail, visit http://www.bordertoborder.org (click on the “B to B Maps” link). For the Earth Day Festival website, visit http://www.a2earthday.org.

    Bob Krzewinski
    Washtenaw Bicycling and Walking Coalition

  3. dp in ypsi
    Posted April 19, 2010 at 8:45 pm | Permalink

    This is fantastic, thanks for the good news!

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