UL1703 Listing: A Photovoltaic Panel Adventure
One of the features that we have been fielding many questions about during public tours of the North House are the photovoltaic panels mounted on the east, south and west faces. These panels are designed to harvest low angle sunlight, appropriate for our northern latitude. They are also extremely efficient at sunrise and sunset. However, as of the forth day of construction, these panels were not yet approved for our use on the National Mall.
The following is a description by Chris Black, one of the Project Designers who helped to coordinate the process of getting the panels approved for our use in the Solar Decathlon:
The PROSOL BIPV’s are the outer cladding layer of our rainscreen wall assembly, creating an integral, high performance, and energy generating skin. The custom frameless glass panels, back-painted black, utilize a cutting-edge BSC mono-crystalline cell (meaning the wires are on the back of the cell) that has an incredible 20% efficiency. They are mounted to the sheathing behind using the anodized aluminum Hunter Douglas Quadroglass Facade system, designed specifically for glass panel facades. The building skin is a primary example of the integrated design philosophy of North House, demonstrating how design and performance support one another to create an optimized and beautiful result.
The PROSOL Panels were manufactured at Schüco’s Aachen fabrication plant in Germany and meet the highest European electrical and safety standards, as certified by TÜV. The challenge to Team North was that European and North American standards are not harmonized and the additional safety testing required for panels to meet the UL 1703 standard takes 90 days; we received the panels on September 3rd and had to have them ready for Washington in less an 1 month!
We partnered with TÜV Rhineland North America and accomplished what appeared to be impossible. Existing testing was reviewed and 2 days of in-lab testing were required in TÜV’s facility in Tempe Arizona. We air-shipped the panels on September 30th from Dulles in Washington and by October 5th, Day 5 of construction, a TÜV Field Evaluation Engineer was on-site to complete an evaluation of our installation and performance. Assisted by our Electrical Team and architectural project management Team, Scott Kendal of TÜV as able to certify our panels as meeting UL 1703 standards!
We connected the panels to our system and on Day 6 we passed our electrical inspection with flying colours and grid-tied that afternoon!
North House, with the Schuco PROSOL Panels surrounding the windows.
Scott Kendal finishes the field evaluation of the panels (left), attaches the certification sticker (centre). The certification sticker on the back of the panel (right).
October 12th, 2009 at 12:08 am
[...] Considering where they come from, no surprise that North House is sealed tight with R-60 insulation. Yet, their effort was complicated by the need to design for cold (let us say, extremely cold) winters and hot & humid summers. Coming from the north also creates another challenge: rooftop solar would have little value for much of the year, which led to putting solar photovolaic (PV) panels mounted vertically on the south, east, and west sides. [...]