Solar Power in Durham

Municipal solar energy generation systems

Since late 2013, approximately 100kWh of the Town's energy has been generated locally. Solar panels installed on the police station, the public library, and the Churchill Rink are up and running. A real-time monitor that shows energy generation and savings for the library may be accessed from the library's home page.

How are we doing? Actual versus projected generation

Supporting Documents, below, include graphs showing a comparison of what we anticipated to generate and what is actually being generated at the library and at the ice rink. Data is not tracked by ReVision Energy for the police station arrays (which were installed at no cost to the town). In addition, as homeowners with solar arrays know, heavy snowfalls tend to interrupt generation.

Churchill Rink: The data acquisition system did not become fully functional until mid-March 2014. Power was being generated at the ice rink, but not logged to the Solectria website (the U.S.-based manufacturer of the photovoltaic inverters used here), hence the shortfall in generation as reflected in the graphs.

Library: Snow cover caused lower than expected generation numbers in January-March 2014, but it was offset by greater than expected generation numbers over the summer—very typical of ReVision Energy's Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) projects.

Want real-time data? Want to know what it means in terms of environmental impact?

For current information, go to this Solectria website. (The Town's arrays use U.S.-made Solectria photovoltaic inverters.) To see an overview for each facility's energy production, type in one of the following site names:

• Durham Public Library
• Durham Churchill Ice Rink
• Durham Police Station

Choose the Site Analytics tab to gain access to all historic generation data from all three projects. These reports can be easily downloaded. 

Residential and commercial solar power

As of early 2015, 36 Durham property owners (primarily homeowners) had installed solar energy systems.