RDCK wastes Public money on solar Part 4

                       ARE YOU STILL READING?

Suggested reading Real Engineering Report of Solar 

Suggested viewing   "Planet of the Humans"

This is about the Balfour Seniors Center Solar System from Public grant money.

(there is the Balfour community hall and golf clubhouse also)

Public grant money benefiting no one except a small reduction in the buildings

electric bills.  The money could go to real society needs instead of this misguided fantasy..

The Alberta salesmen did a number on the RDCK.  Why is the system making 25% less power than elsewhere?  There are many possibilities.  Underperforming panels brought from Alberta, who is going to know?  Less than adequate inverters not making use of all the power as seen below.  At least the on line public data represents what is installed.  The community hall and golf clubhouse systems are both fiddled with to make them appear to be making more power than they are.  This was the installing company, one mistake? possible, but two and I can explain their reasons but not here.  It had to be premeditated.  Who is gonna know?  I do.

Data shows the Flat topping shown on a perfect sunny
day April 16, 2020.
A result of undersized inverters being unable to capture all the
energy because they are saturated.  It should look like a bell curve.

The data from last year shows the 9.15 kW system
earned 7600 kWh

That is 830kWh/kw installed, 

About 25%  less than others locally.

This is the only south facing installation of the three where the installation company did not
fiddle with the public on line data, the Community Hall
and Golf Clubhouse misrepresent the power and the public
would never know.  Fiddling makes these systems look more like they are making the power their bid estimates showed.


The annual 7600kWh /yr would have been made by Nelson hydro
at cost of generation for $66/yr and sold for a 1400% profit.

In the RDCK report from the bidder they show installation costs as low as $2.68, not believable, you can't come from Alberta and install for that price unless maybe you are bringing over inferior underperforming equipment you don't want to sell locally.
 The Nelson Community Solar garden
cost was almost $7/watt.
So I will ignore that and calculate using a more reasonable cost of $4/watt installed.

Seniors center 9150 watts installed x $4/watt =$36,600.
Business case borrowed money at 3.5% over 25 years is
annual payments of $2200/yr  for power Nelson hydro makes for $66/yr. and a huge profit

Who loses?  Someone who didn't receive any grant money for a real benefit to society because someone came up with a phony grant application for this.
Nelson hydro customers subsidizing this from lost power sales income from cleaner greener waterpower
sales that could help reduce everyones electric bill.
This adds to our carbon footprint, nothing is cleaner than our water 
power, did you watch the
youtube video Planet of the Humans?

The RDCK director has all this, at least this is a public record, nothing changes, there is no accountability. 

Technical Tip:

I was speaking to the area director trying to point out solar here was a waste of public money and would look over the bids, I never heard from her, what you got from the solar salesmen.

Cheap STRING inverters,  undersized as you can see by Flat topping above.


These are like the old Christmas tree bulb series strings, one bulb goes out, they all go out.
With more expensive inverters you could see how each individual panel performs and immediatly pick out an underperforming panel.
That might explain some of the annual energy loss of this system compared to others properly installed.
Is there a possibility the company brought underperforming panels?  How would you know?

GOOD LUCK servicing a possible bad panel.  Who here knows how to do that, try to gain access to each individual panel to measure!
Inverters last maybe 10 years, forget about their fake warranties,  they are about as good as these salesmen. from 
Alberta, you'll never see them again, they got your (our) money!  


Same thing regarding the Balfour Community Hall and Golf clubhouse although the installers created phony on line information so they look like they are working better than they are.
Looks like you got Scammed, we all got scammed, our public grant money gone.
Area director Ramona Faust should have taken me up on my offer to review the information.
I haven't seen an honest grant application for solar yet, the Nelson community solar garden is a fraud!

Accountability anywhere? Never!