One way the Sammamish Valley Alliance, (SVA) is celebrating Earth Day is by gathering today (and socially distancing) at the location of their new off-grid, 100% solar-powered, 3000 square foot farm cooler in Woodinville, Washington with their Keep It Cool, Keep It Fresh refrigeration project.
One of the challenges facing the farmers at this location has been keeping cut produce cool after harvest. SVA reached out to Puget Sound Solar about designing and installing a solar + storage system to power SVA’s food cooler 100% of the time. The costs of extending a power line out to the location were prohibitive and when combined with SVA’s goals of promoting sustainability, going solar just made even more sense.
Our design team worked closely with SVA’s team, who shared the size of the cooling room (3000 square feet!), the power needs of the cooling equipment that would be used, the r-factor of the building (for energy losses) and how many hours the coolers would be used each season to calculate how many solar panels and batteries would be needed.
We designed and installed a 9.36kW, solar photovoltaic system comprised of 24 Silfab Solar, 390 watt panels, an Outback Power Radian GD8048 and eight Concorde Xtender Sun6V/405Ah batteries that should provide electricity for the cooler, lighting and even some extra plug-in capacity, all year long – while being 100% independent from the main electrical grid.
The project was funded in part by Woodinville Rotary, Rotary District 5030, A Farm In the Valley, LLC, Viva Farms and 21 Acres.
Make an Earth Day commitment to support local farmers whenever you can.
