[Npfreiraum] Need information for installing Solar Panels

[Timo Felbinger]

On Wed, Jan 13, 2021 at 02:08:13PM +0100, Nadja Kath wrote:
> 
> Timo, maybe you can help Shubham a bit more?
> 

Hi Shubham,

sorry for the late reply!
Yes I was involved when the solar cells on Building 6 got installed
in 2010, and I'm still involved in operating the plant: we still get
money for the power produced; we use that to pay back the loans we
took to pay for the plant, and use the surplus for other projects
(though our association has changed the name in the mean time, from
"UniSolar Potsdam" to "warum nicht heute").

I remember that we met lots of obstacles in 2010. In particular, we could
not find a feasible way to have the plant connected to the university grid;
rather, we got own connection to the public power grid, and all power is
fed right into the public grid.
The main problem was: if we connect to the internal university grid, the
company that operates the public grid would demand the same type of meter
on our plant as is used for billing at the connection of the university
to the public grid.
That would be a time-resolved 4-quadrant meter and would be exceedingly
expensive (and they even threatened to charge us for fictional transformer
losses, as the university has a 10kV-connection while the plant produces
240V), so we dropped that idea :-(

Getting permission to build the plant on the roof also took quite some
effort, we had to provide expert assesments on fire/lightning protection,
static stability of the roof, and more.

But maybe the university administration today is more inclined to support
such a project?

Do you have a more detailed plan already on where to install the plant,
how large, and how to finance it? Please keep me updated, and aks if you
have further questions!

Cheers,
Timo