After listening to the lecture given by a representative from Constellation Energy, I am left with a few concerns about the proposed plan to install solar energy on the Washington College Campus.
1. Where is it really going to go? The magnitude of the solar power project is quite large. There are only a handful of places on this campus that I can think of to put solar panels and most of those are athletic fields. It could be that WAC owns more land than what I realize, but in order to generate 2 MW (which I believe was about what this project entailed, a large chunk of the campus that could be otherwise used for recreational activities, etc. will be required for this project?
2. Are they going to be safe? And by this question I am not referring to whether or not they will give off any toxic gases or be a detriment to the surrounding area. What I mean is, are they going to be safe from a bunch of drunk college kids on a Friday or Saturday night. This isn't a normal question you would probably ask with this project, but from personal experience, I don't think a large portion of the students who attend Washington College are mature enough to handle solar panels. I may be wrong, but I know in my dorm in particular (Sassafras), the brand new elevator was put out of service for several months because certain students would not stop breaking various pieces of it. I think that if we do install solar panels, especially ground panels, they will need to be fenced in (possibly a guard dog as well, haha).
3. Is Chestertown really a great locale for solar panels? It may just be me, but this town seems to be constantly under a rain cloud. Maybe it was just this year, but I feel like it has been raining four or five days out of the week this semester. With so much overcast, are solar panels going to be efficient?
4. Is it worth the price? I don't exactly recall the price of the project in total (somewhere in the 16 million dollar range maybe), but considering that when installed and working, the solar panels will only be used to meet roughly 15% of our energy demands it's hard to justify spending that amount of money to meet the energy demand of about a sixth of this campus.
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All great questions. As for location--my sense is that there are people pushing for it to be in, or rather over, a parking lot. I agree that they are fragile enough to warrant some concern over what students might do to the facility. Is the solar resource good enough here? Presumably Constellation energy has done the background work on this. Still I agree that this prediction should be scrutinized.
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