Marine Electronics
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While other solar integration companies are busily installing flat-topped solar carports in the sunshine states, one solar integration company, Inovaeteus Solar, is making an inroad into Michigan’s marine solar market. Whether or not these solar sailboat ports will offer the power or applications potential that solar carports will need is a question that remains to be answered. However, if response from boat docks is anything like that from parking lot companies, you can expect that more solar boat parking will become available throughout the country.
Inovateus Solar located in Sound Bend Indiana, recently obtained a solar power project to equip the Torresen Marine facility in Muskegon, Michigan with 150 kilowatts of solar panels. The solar power project is considered the largest so far in the State of Michigan, a state whose climate, by many standards, is not considered optimum for solar energy.
The solar energy project, to cost about $740,000, is expected to reduce power requirements at the 600 sailboat facility by about 30 percent. Inovateus Solar, Chart House Energy and Torresen Marine will work together on the project
The solar panels for the project will include 750 solar panels from Scheuten Solar USA. According to T.J. Kanczuzewski, Executive Vice President of Inovateus Solar, Scheuten was selected because their solar modules are well suited for the harsh climate of the Lake Michigan area. Explaining the choice, he said, “We chose Scheuten Solar technology for this installation because their high-quality modules are a great application for solar power in the harsh environment of snow, ice and high winds near Lake Michigan. The front-side load of the Scheuten panels have the equivalent of 110 pounds per square foot and uses 4-millimeter glass which is 25 percent thicker than the industry standard of 3.2 millimeters. ”
He also indicated that the Michigan area has actually more solar energy potential than Germany, home base of Scheuton. ” Over one Gigawatt of Scheuten Solar panels have been installed in Europe and a large percentage of these projects are in Germany, a country that actually receives less sunlight than Michigan.“
Federal stimulus funds, as well as an environmentally oriented sailing community were considered major reasons why Torresen Marina decided to go ahead with the solar project. Brian Torresen, co-owner of Torresen Marine elaborated, “We were approached by Chart House Energy for this project with the concept of what was available between federal stimulus funds, a feed-in tariff program from Consumer’s Energy and the potential to do the right thing for the environment with renewable energy. Our sailboat customers are very environmentally friendly. Our waterfront location is also a perfect fit for the technology Inovateus Solar specified for us with the high winds keeping the snow off the panels.”
