Taking our requirements into consideration, we looked into multiple parking sites around the university. We settled on five locations because of usable surface area. From these five choices, we chose parking lot C and East Garage as our study case. The five locations are listed in the table below.
Table 1- List of Potential Locations
Because these five sites had the largest parking lots around the university, we considered them as eligible locations for our carport. Per our requirements, we placed an importance on usable and existing parking spaces, this essentially reduced the upfront cost of implementing the solar carport because we were only adding on to the spaces and not building a parking spot of our own. Figure__ highlights the university owned spaces chosen as potential building sites.
Figure 1- Selected University Parking Lots
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In 2017, University of California, Riverside installed more than 9600 solar panels in two of its campus parking lots.
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4.3 megawatt system size. The panels will provide shading for 2450 parking spots
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Expected to generate 7.6 million KWH in the first year of operation, equivalent to 788 homes
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apital Cost of the system is a $14.4 million, or $3.55/W Took 8 weeks to construct
Figure 2 - UC Riverside Parking Lots 30 & 32
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11,040 individual panels were installed on pre existing carport structures
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4.75-megawatt system size. Largest solar installation on any of the 23 California State University campuses
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Expected to generate 7.5 million KWH in first year of operation, Approximately 15% of the energy consumed on campus
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Provides 22 electric vehicle charges capable of powering 2 vehicles at a time
Figure 3 - UC Long Beach Lots 7 & 14
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88 photovoltaic solar panels mounted to the roof of the university’s central power plan20.24 kW system
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Produces approximately 23600 kWh annually over 2000 square feet (11.6 kWh per square foot)
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Saves the university as much as $300,000 over its lifetime
Figure 4 - UH Central Plant