The City of Calgary in their continuing effort to reduce their environmental footprint, installed solar photovoltaic systems at the Glenmore and Bearspaw Water Treatment Plants. Associated Engineering provided review, design and commissioning support to incorporate new solar photovoltaic systems into the existing electrical distribution systems. We designed the control scheme for inverter power flow termination in the event of the back-up power generation system is activated. We also performed an electrical fault, coordination and arc flash study.
The Glenmore system is roof mounted on the clarified water basin and consists of 7 inverters, 463 optimizers and 926 solar photovoltaic panels. The system capacity is 233.1 kW, and is expected to offset approximately 365,000 kWH of energy annually.
The Bearspaw system is ground mounted on the backfill over the clarified water basins using ballasted supports and consists of 15 inverters, 870 optimizers and 1740 solar photovoltaic panels. The system capacity is 499.5 kW, and is expected to offset approximately 900,000 kWH of energy annually.
In both plants, energy produced by the solar photovoltaic system is used to offset utility power requirements for plant loads.