UC Irvine Professors and PhD Students Tour Sunpin Solar's ColGreen North Shore Solar Power Plant
A group of professors and PhD students from University of California, Irvine Department of Earth System Science toured Sunpin Solar's ColGreen North Shore("CNS") Solar Power Plant as one of the destinations during their California Desert Field Trip.
The 96.75 MW CNS Solar Power Plant is one of Sunpin Solar's large scale solar installations in the United States. It is situated on 485 acres of land in the city of Mecca, CA. With an expected annual production of 210,000 Megawatt Hours of solar energy production, the project can generate enough to power over 22,300 homes annually. It has been operational since December 2018.
During the site visit, the group was able to take a deep dive into how solar energy is generated, its environmental impact, and how State of California strategize its shift from traditional energy generation to renewable energy. Sunpin Solar staffs showed the group the major components of a solar power plant, solar modules, central inverters, tracking system and the substation engineered and designed through the company.
"As an Irvine-based leading utility-scale solar developer, we are excited to engage and support the local community through educational programs and workforce development initiatives. It is aligned with our mission to host the educational solar tour and play a role in fostering the future generation's interest in sustainability," says David Dai, Director of Asset Management of Sunpin Solar.
"We talk a lot about the environmental benefits of solar and other renewable energy technologies in the classroom, but it was terrific for students to see the technologies in action and talk to the Sunpin team who are deploying and managing them,' says Steven Davis, UCI associate professor of Earth System Science. "We particularly enjoyed the discussion of technical and financial hurdles to completing the energy transition away from fossil fuels in the years to come."
This is the second educational solar tour hosted by Sunpin Solar for UC Irvine students. Last year in October, a group of students from UCI's Engineers for a Sustainable World visited Sunpin Solar's Irvine office for a "Lunch and Learn" presentation before taking a tour at CNS site.
Sunpin Solar | http://www.sunpinsolar.us
University of California, Irvine | https://uci.edu