Stanford Farm transitions to “fully on-site” solar power

For nearly 10 years, the O’Donohue Family Stanford Educational Farm has provided a unique research environment, produce for Stanford dining halls and educational opportunities through classes and volunteering.

Now, in a project run by Sergio Sanchez, fifth-year Ph.D. student in the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources (E-IPER), the farm produces all its energy with an array of rooftop solar panels.

The new energy system features three batteries, which store solar power to ensure the farm stays renewable all year long. The solar microgrid is projected to capture 50 megawatt-hours a year, exceeding the farm’s current consumption of 30 megawatt-hours a year.

However, Sanchez said it’s too soon to know how closely the actual grid will match those projections. “Of course, [there will be] months where the sun is not much,” Sanchez said. “We will most likely use some of the energy from the PG&E grid.”

Sanchez’s goal is to better optimize the use of the system’s batteries with time so that solar can eventually power every aspect of their operations year-round.

According to project executive David Kirk, who was involved with the solar panel project and the original creation of the farm, a solar-powered farm was a wishlist item for farm director Patrick Archie from the beginning.

“Originally there was a desire to have solar panels on the roof,” Kirk said. “And there was a generous donation, but it wasn’t enough to quite build everything.” 

GS Energy Corporation provided a roughly $2 million contribution as funding for the project, according to GS Energy CEO and President KJ Lee. Around one-third of the contribution was monetary, while the rest took the form of engineering, procurement, construction and internal expenditure, Lee told The Daily.

After the farm was built, the goal of solar remained shelved until Sanchez took on the project as a Living Lab fellow nearly three years ago.

For Sanchez, the smart panel is the key to the microgrid’s potential as an educational endeavor, rather than just an energy project.

A small screen mounted next to the classroom space in the farm’s signature red barn will give students and visitors a look inside the inner workings of the system, displaying energy generation and use in real time. It will also display which appliances are using the most energy to help them diagnose areas for improvement in the system, such as an appliance in need of repair.

Sanchez said students will be an essential part of the project’s future. “It will be part [of the job] of our students to do the research on seeing how we make sure that it’s 24/7, 365 days [a year] fully on-site, terminal energy,” said Sanchez.

The fellowship gave Sanchez the chance to see the “positive, tangible” impact of his work, he said. According to Sanchez, research can be “pretty dry,” but this project allowed him to have a more direct impact on his community.

“For me, this project — you can see [it], you can touch it. You can see the energy in the PG&E bill, so it’s pretty exciting for me to, to some extent, leave something when I leave campus,” said Sanchez.

Over the next six months, Sanchez will be examining how the microgrid is matching up to the system’s projections. This data will help him select the most promising proposals for classes and research projects to carry the project forward. 

“This can be a model for other small farms, not only in California, but everywhere else in the world,” Sanchez said.

The post Stanford Farm transitions to “fully on-site” solar power appeared first on The Stanford Daily.