The Future of Solar Energy at the Tiger Woods Learning Center
The Tiger Woods Learning Center is a 35,000 square foot, 14 acre education facility located in Anaheim, California. The center’s goal is to help young students excel in education and sports after school. Last week I joined the LA/OC Alternative Energy Meetup Group for a tour of the facility not because of the educational value the learning center promoted, but because of the awesome solar photovoltaic system they have integrated into the high tech facility.
The roof of the learning center features a standard rooftop array, although the most interesting element of the solar system is the Building Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV), basically what that means the some of the building’s windows actually has a tint, that turns the sunlight into electricity! The windows have thin-film solar cells sandwhiched between two plates of glass. The solar photovoltaic system was designed by Solar Design Associates (SDA) of Harvard, Massachusetts.
The BIPV solar window curtain wall is made up of custom, thin-film modules with special glass from Schott Solar, the standard rooftop array was provided by PowerLight. The tricky part of this installation was the design of the solar powered windows was both curved and sloped which required SDA to specify BIPV window of different size, shape and light transmissions. The Tiger Woods Learning Center of the only places in the USA that has successfully implemented and using BIPV to generate free clean electricity from the sun!
Learn more about the tiger woods learning center: http://www.twlc.org/
