I’ve got a little piece in today’s Toronto Star about a Web site being created that tracks the performance of a 100-kilowatt solar PV system recently unveiled at the Exhibition Place in Toronto. Sadly, this pilot system is the largest in Canada — when the rest of the world is talking multiple megawatts!!! — but the plan is to expand to 1.5 to 2 megawatts after a feasibility study is done on the pilot. Data will be collected on the performance of the system through a number of seasons and weather conditions, and how much the system offsets energy use at the Exhibition Place’s historic Horse Palace, which is hosting a combination of four different solar arrays (a mix of Sharp and Evergreen panels, and Xantrex and Sunny Boy inverters) atop its roof.

The decision by Exhibition Place to make this data publicly available through a Web site is an excellent one, as it will give people a chance to monitor the technology 24-hours a day and get a feel for how well a solar PV system works in an urban setting such as Toronto, which I suppose is also considered a northern climate (though it’s technically further south than the tip of northern California). Two Web cameras on the Horse Palace roof will also transmit images to the Web site, so people can see the relationship between weather and clouds and the output of the arrays. Other metrics, such as temperature and wind speed/direction, will also be included on the Web site. The data is being collected and displayed in a user-friendly way using software from Malboro, Mass.-based Fat Spaniel Technologies Inc. (see image above, left). Carmanah Technologies Inc. of Victoria, B.C., installed the solar PV system and is overseeing development of the tracking Web site. The site itself should be up and accessible sometime in September, and a link will be available through Exhibition Place’s Web site (www.explace.on.ca).

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