Interview
Solar Energy Expert Interview
Mark Manning
CEM, CEP, EBCP, LEED-AP O&M
Assistant Director
Utilities and Energy Program
Georgetown University
- MBA, Seattle University
- BS, Electrical Engineering, Portland State University
Transcript
My name is Mark Manning. I’m the Assistant Director of Energy and Utilities at Georgetown University.
President DeGioia made a commitment to reduce by half our greenhouse gas emissions on the 2006 baseline, and we’ve since achieved that goal and we’ve done it with primarily with renewable energy credits and we’ve developed projects as well to improve efficiency within the building, within the central utility plant, and to provide for both onsite and offsite solar.
Can you describe Georgetown’s investments in solar energy specifically?
Offsite is very exciting. It will provide for about half of our expected consumption beginning in mid 2019. And that’s about 32 megawatts of generation in Eastern Maryland Shore. And so onsite is six buildings, about 1.1 megawatt. They’re rooftop arrays at various buildings, including the historic intercultural center and several other buildings and alumni square, off campus or near campus.
Can you tell us about the solar array atop the Bunn Intercultural Center (ICC)?
For the ICC, we generally talk about 300 kilowatts of generating capacity over thirty years. That’s pretty easy to remember. There’s about 4,400 panels that were installed originally and deployed in 1984. It’s the largest rooftop array of its kind at the time and it has persisted well beyond its expected useful life.
What are the benefits of smartflower?
I feel that it’s a good modular solution, in that you don’t need a designer to deploy it. I think probably you could get by with an electrician. You pull the proper permits, you may need to trench over to your house panelboard, but otherwise I think it could be deployed and installed relatively quickly. So for those that are maybe wary about, or don’t have a connection to an engineer to design a system custom for their house, this may be a good option. It does require some real estate.
What advantages might a system like smartflower have over rooftop panels?
Think about being able to go up there to maintain the panels, to be able to clean the panels, and you may need some type of fall protection system. You may need additional grounding – lightning protection for the system. And so there’s a lot of complications that add potential cost to your project.
What are the shortcomings of smartflower?
There’s a complicating factor in that it opens and closes every day, so there’s mechanical motion and if there’s one thing that could fail, it’s mechanical-type linkages, and so that may need to be serviced more often. Whereas when you install an array on a roof, you have cleaning to do but I think rarely will something fail within the near term. And a photovoltaic panel can last 20 years. An inverter can last 15, 20 years.
What is special about smartflower’s storage capacity?
This product can provide an advantage, because your normal rooftop solar array would not have storage. And now, with the battery, it can smooth out that consumption profile so that you can provide for peak capacity during the day and you can use the energy stored at night to power your house.
How does the use of solar energy align with Georgetown’s Jesuit Values?
Within the Laudato Si, “On Care for Our Common Home,” Pope Francis talks about taking care of the planet, and especially the disparity between those developed countries and poor in other areas.
