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RAPID CITY, S.D. — It was an effort that was years in the making – a 160 module solar project on the roof of the Vanderboom Laboratory for Entrepreneurial Research Building on the South Dakota Mines campus.
The solar installation – a collaboration between Mines and GenPro Energy Development – was energized recently providing power for the Vanderboom building and data for Mines’ students to put into real world applications.
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This marks the first solar installation for South Dakota Mines and is designed to provide energy savings to the campus and serve as a model for sustainability by providing real-time data for student courses and projects.
“The data that we’ll be able to take off of this they’ll be able to use into a class if they want to do, let’s say that we want to test out a solar array up on the Placer Hall building. They could use some of the data here to be able to use it as more exact data or or things that are real to them, instead of just having to look at the theoretics,” said Jerilyn Roberts, Vice President for Operations, South Dakota Mines.
The Vanderboom building was chosen for the project as it had ample space for panels and provided the return on investment necessary to allow state energy funds to be used for funding.
As data is gathered on the current project, the future development of solar energy on the Mines’ campus will be assessed.
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