The facilities of Catholic University in the United States are located above the trees on both sides of the community solar project. This 7.5 MW project is located on Harwood Road across from the campus. Standard solar energy

In cities like Washington, unoccupied land is very rare, let alone priceless. But the Catholic Church and CUA own more land than most organizations.

I believe that besides the federal government, we are the largest landowner in Washington D.C., which is one of the reasons why we are able to develop 25 acres of solar panels on site, "said Gabrielle Choate, CUA Campus Sustainability Director.

This 7.5 megawatt solar array occupies a portion of the 40 acre plot on CUA West Campus, with the remaining land reserved for ancient trees and nurseries. The project was developed by Standard Solar, which collaborated with CUA between 2009 and 2012 to develop a series of rooftop battery arrays and solar carports.

Chuck VonDrehle, Senior Project Manager at Standard Solar, said, "The university has already utilized many net metering opportunities in other buildings... so this is a way for them to fulfill their previous commitments

This century old university hired Standard Solar at the end of 2020, and in the following year, the developer collaborated with university, city, and community committees to design and approve community solar projects.

This community solar project was launched in June 2024, and Standard Solar will lease the land for the next 20 years, but the developer has set the operating life of its project at 35 years. This array can accommodate approximately 1100 users and is open to residents in all eight districts of DC. CUA has ordered 12% of the total production of the array.

They could have sold this land, which is very valuable in any urban area. They could have redeveloped it into a townhouse or even an academic building, and they still retained the option for the future because it is a temporary use for the next 20 years, which is just a short period of time for the life of a university, "Fennati said.

The array on the west campus is obscured by natural surroundings on three sides and has no direct neighbors. Before construction, the site was an open space covered with wild shrubs and residual forests. The land slopes southward and is slightly flat to accommodate the solar cell array facing south.

In order to build the system, some trees must be cut down, but many of them are donated to the urban forestry department of the regional transportation department. After processing, they will be provided to regional schools and high-risk youth projects for student projects and infrastructure construction. Another part of the wood is covered and used for CUA's community gardens and sidewalks. The remaining trees are considered important to the site, so installation personnel avoided the roots of ancient trees when piling.

The array consists of FLEXRACK fixed tilt series brackets from QCells, CPS 275 kW series inverters, and ZNShine Solar 540 W solar modules. The solar panels are installed at a 20 ° tilt and placed far enough away from trees to avoid any shading. The power electronic components of the array are placed in a cool place.

In the coming years, with the planting of locally pollinating seed crops, the ecological condition of this land will be improved. Local beekeepers have placed beehives in the university to increase biomass.

During the development process, new fiber optic communication lines, transformers, and utility feeder cables were replaced and upgraded to enable the grid to receive the new capacity of the community's solar project. Due to the communication interconnection limit of 3 megawatts for DC community solar projects, Standard Solar must design an array with two independent grid connection points

We are maximizing the scale of our projects to accommodate some of the public policy limitations of each interconnected community solar project, while also collaborating with local utility companies to utilize existing grid line capacity, "said John Finnati, Business Development Director at Standard Solar

Although it is difficult to find the array on campus, students can access its monitoring software and production data for academic purposes, and standard solar companies also regularly visit the project site.

The university was founded in 1887 and currently has 5000 students. It has 12 colleges and 53 buildings, covering an area of 176 acres. CUA established the Campus Sustainable Development Office in 2022, which took the lead in implementing relevant measures under the guidance of Pope Francis' call for climate change. CUA has commissioned a solar energy project to serve the Greater Washington D.C. community, where the school has been working for 138 years.

I am proud of this university. What I mean is, there are many potential uses for this land, so we have decided to promote the development of renewable energy in the region and even across the country, which is really great, "Jott said. I didn't know that other universities around me had such a thing