The Virginia National Guard 183rd Regiment completed a solar installation at its Regional Training Institute (RTI) at Fort Pickett, Virginia. The project, a $2.2 million, 488-kilowatt solar array that measures 10,000 square yards and consists of nearly 2,000 individual solar panels, provides the RTI with nearly 80 percent of its daytime energy needs. This field is estimated to produce 712,000 kilowatt hours per year and was installed adjacent to the RTI campus. This project has the potential to replace more than 1 million pounds of CO2 normally produced by convention power generation sources.
A Lufft WS500 weather sensor was used on the installation. The Lufft weather sensor provides wind speed, wind direction, temperature, humidity and air pressure. The weather station and pyranometer together provide weather and solar radiation data from the field that is then integrated into a Schneider Electric BAS and display on the customers energy management dashboard. Evergreen Solar was the installer on the job with oversight from Schneider Electric. Lufft provided the weather sensor that provides data for the array.
