Hidden Glen Farms Solar Tour

Hello, this is Hidden Glen Farms in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, and this is our 17.82 kilowatt solar system installed on the south side of a 300-year-old bank farm. We recently had to replace the roof, including the rafters, so the structure was able to handle the weight. We also used standing seam metal roofing, which made the attachment of the framing of the panels much easier.

Equipment

The panels are provided by LG and the hardware is provided by Outback. Our emergency backup battery is provided by Blue Planet Energy. We chose the blue Ion due to its non-toxic lithium Ferrous phosphate chemistry, rather than the more toxic lithium cobalt. They also do not have the overheating problem that many of the other batteries have. They have a wide temperature vein for charging, storage, and discharge. A 99% usable DOD, 8,000 cycle life accompanied by a best-in-class, 15-year warranty.

The 54 panels are split into three series of 18. The three series are then passed through these three charge combiners and into a rapid shutdown. It has the three charge controllers, which are responsible for keeping our battery at the proper charge. Our DC then passes through these two converters and comes out as AC, which is measured by this AC meter.

This is the meter that we will use to determine our SRECs or Solar Renewable Energy Credit, which we can then sell on the open market. The software is contained in this three module, which measures the solar production, the house and barn usage, and the net meter. As you might be able to tell, the fans for cooling the inverters can be somewhat noisy, so placing equipment in the barn rather than the house was our preferred placement.

We’ve installed the AC disconnect, which is required and kept in case any emergency services need to access the roof.

Automatic Transfer Switch

As we have emergency backup from a battery system, we have an automatic transfer switch. This comes into play if and when the power from the grid goes out. In that case, this switches over to our battery for emergency power. Then, if and when the grid comes back online, it switches off the battery and back onto the grid to provide any excess power.The AC then goes to our critical load panels, both here and at the house to provide all the energy that’s required to run both our farm and our house.

Meters

Our utility does not provide net metering, so we have two meters, an incoming meter and an outgoing meter. The incoming meter measures what we use from the utility at night or on a rainy day. The outgoing meter measures our solar production over and above what we use at the house and the barn. We pay for everything on the incoming meter, and we’re given credit for everything that’s provided to the grid through our outgoing meter.

Installation & Design Services

Professional services were provided by Solar States of Philadelphia, who provided the design, the installation, and the technical adjustments to this system. For those of you that are interested in the technical components and interoperability, I’m including a diagram that the team at Solar States produced for us.

System Cost

The cost for the system, not including PECO charges and permits, was $124,000. While we are very excited to have our solar system up and running, both for its ecological sustainability as well as for reliable backup power, we did encounter a number of hurdles along the way. Our project took over two years from concept to permission to operate. Our initial system was reviewed and rejected by PECO unless we were to pay an additional fee for another review. We paid the fee and the review said if we were to pay for street wiring upgrades, substation upgrades, that they would approve the project. We paid the fees and they eventually made the improvements to their system.

At that point, we were eligible for the permit from the township. Unfortunately, by this time we were into the pandemic, which influenced both the supply of parts as well as the labor. Our installation commenced the first week of November 2020, and was completed the last week of December 2020 when we received independent review by a contractor.

At this point we should have been functional and operational, but PECO decided to object to our backup battery power. The situation continued until we filed a complaint with the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC). By July, they then installed our meters and gave us our Permission to Operate. The only thing left on our agenda is entrance into the SREC market for our solar renewable energy credits, which we hope will be happening soon. 

So then I hope you’ve appreciated our presentation, and I wish you the best of luck with your own projects.