Norwegian vertical solar energy specialist Over Easy Solar has installed its first vertical rooftop solar installation in the US market. The 100 kW system, combined with a green roof in New York, is expected to produce approximately 120,000 kWh annually, depending on factors such as albedo, azimuth and local shading.
Vertical solar specialist Via Easy Solar has deployed its first vertical rooftop solar installation in the US.
The installation is combined with a green roof in the Willets Point industrial district Queens, New York, on top of one building of an unknown owner. It was supplied by Over Easy Solar’s partner Sempergreen USA, North America’s largest manufacturer and supplier of pre-grown vegetation mats for green roofs.
The 100 kW vertical array uses Over Easy Solar’s xM3 VPV unit, a prefabricated vertical bifacial system designed for flat roofs. It features four units of 256 W each, Huasun heterojunction technology (HJT) solar cells with 95-96% bifaciality and a mounting system that requires no ballast or roof penetration.
“Because of its unique resistance to wind uplift, this super-lightweight system (2.4 bs/sqft) can be combined with a green roof without additional ballast issues,” said Dick Bernauer, VP Sales of Sempergreen USA. “If you have a generic flat roof with a low load-bearing capacity, this is also an excellent solution.”
Trygve Mongstad, founder and CEO of Over Easy Solar, explains pv magazine the vertical system allows both rain and sunlight to reach the entire vegetated surface, retaining rainwater and maintaining plant health, which he says is something that would be compromised with traditional ballast systems.
He added that the project was originally planned with a conventional tilted PV layout, but this was changed to a vertical configuration to comply with New York City’s Department of Environmental Protection. priorities for green roof performance.
Image: About Easy Solar
Mongstad told it too pv magazine that the specific energy yield of a vertical bifacial solar installation is comparable to that of a conventional installation.
“A 100 kWp installation with vertical solar panels in New York would produce 100,000 to 140,000 kWh per year, depending on factors such as albedo, azimuth and local shading,” Mongstad explains. “A conventional east-west oriented flat roof solar installation of 100 kWp with an angle of ten degrees would produce approximately 116,000 kWh per year in New York, with the same radiation data.”
“Speaking of specific output, vertical solar installations range from 1,000 to 1,400 kWh/kWp/year and conventional east-west flat roof solar systems yield around 1,300 kWh/kWp/year,” he added.
Mongstad also shared that Over Easy Solar has begun developing an energy yield portal that allows users to explore the effect of albedo, azimuth and location on vertical two-sided solar systems. The company now has data from New York addedalongside figures from Berlin, Madrid, Oslo and Tromsø.
Last September, Over Easy Solar broke its own record for the world’s largest vertical rooftop solar panels with a 320 kW system in Tromso. Earlier in the year, A case study by the company showed that vertical solar panels on the roof can do just that surpass conventional solar systems on roofs during the snow months, with an energy yield that is up to 30% higher.
In January, Sydney-based Smart Commercial Energy announced it was partnering with Over Easy Solar to launch the Norwegian company’s vertical rooftop solar system. in the Australian market.
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