Collegepark Zwijsen Grid Connected PV E.CO

A renovation and redevelopment of a former school into 115 apartments, located in Veghel (NL). A private grid is explored enabling smart supply of central solar PV and solar thermal production for apartment heating and warm water supply.

All apartments of the Collegepark Zwijsen Grid Connected PV E.CO have balanced ventilation with energy recovery and an air-to-air heat pump and hot fill facilities for dish washer and washing machine. Owners were guaranteed a zero-energy bill for the first three years.

Project has given experimental exemption of the Electricity Law. Because the project is realized under local architectural rules, the project has to take care of visual and architectural limitations regarding the application of solar panels and collectors.

Because of architectural preferences the project has chosen to apply thin film panels. These panels are made of glass and can be place on the walls above the windows as solar screen. In the summer period the solar panels will keep the sun out of the apartment and in the winter period the sun enters the apartment freely for warming.

All solar-PV installations are connected to the private grid, as are all the apartments. Due to a specific legal construction (mandeligheid) net metering is claimed for each apartment with its share of the central produced electricity. A demand side management system controls the main appliances in each apartment.

Additionally, a solar thermal system of 250 kWth installed on south-east and south-west oriented facades provides the additional heat for heating and warm water.

Batteries are not installed at the site and any electricity which is generated and is not used by the PV E.CO is exported onto the local distribution network. The PV inverters are installed dedicated to the orientation and position of the solar panels. Because the solar panels are placed on the buildings in different positions and locations, multi-string PV Inverters with several MPP trackers were installed. Therefore, all PV strings can be controlled individually by dedicated MPP trackers. Therefore, negative effects due to different orientation and inclination of PV strings can be minimized.

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