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SUPERIOR — The University of Wisconsin-Superior is turning to the sun to save energy.
After two years of planning, design and finally the ground-mounted installation of a solar system, the Superior campus is just waiting for one component to bring the system online and begin reducing its burden from the electrical grid.
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The 440-kilowatt system is expected to save the university about 500,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity and reduce annual energy costs by about $45,000 per year.
Wescom, with offices in Duluth and Ashland, installed the solar panels, inverters, a combiner panel and a medium-voltage switch.
“So how the system is designed, it will dump the electricity that it produces right into our main substation, and that’ll be fed to all our buildings,” said Mark Graves, UWS facilities manager. “So every building will get an automatic reduction in utility costs.”
The university is waiting for a breaker to bring the system online, Graves said. He said that it should arrive in February or March and hopefully will be installed during spring break.”
“The campus needed to undertake a renewable energy project, and a solar array was selected to provide relief to utility costs,” said Jeff Kahler, UWS vice chancellor of administration and finance. “The new solar array will reduce demand on the grid and electrical utility costs across campus.”
The State Building Commission funded the project in 2023. Construction of the new Superior Choice Credit Union Stadium had to be completed to free up the old soccer fields where the solar system is now located.
In addition to reducing demand from the grid and reducing utility costs, Graves said the new system has the potential to serve as a student learning opportunity on multiple fronts.
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“I also look at it as a potential living classroom for our sustainability students to kind of delve into understanding how the solar array will interact with the environment; how it will interact with insects and wildlife,” Graves said. “I think there’s a learning opportunity for our sustainable students to understand how it will interact between the seasons, when it’s sunny, and then ultimately share those findings with the community so we can learn together.”
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