Five Years of Residential Photovoltaic System Experience at Tucson Electric Power

Authors

  • L.M. Moore Sandia National Laboratories Albuquerque, New Mexico
  • H.N. Post Sandia National Laboratories Albuquerque, New Mexico

Abstract

Tucson Electric Power Company (TEP) is a U.S. utility leader in the
early adoption of photovoltaic power generation with over 6.0 MWdc
of grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) systems installed in its service ter-
ritory since 2000. A signifi cant element of the TEP photovoltaic effort is
the SunShare PV hardware buy-down program that has been offered to
TEP customers since 2001. During the past five years, 282 residential-
size systems totaling 655 kWdc of crystalline silicon collectors have been
installed in the Tucson area through SunShare. Much has been learned
regarding performance, cost, maintenance, installation, and design of
these systems. This article presents an assessment of these topics and
a perspective associated with a family of systems within this PV pro-
gram.

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Author Biography

L.M. Moore, Sandia National Laboratories Albuquerque, New Mexico

Larry Moore retired from Sandia National Laboratories in April 2008. Prior to that, he was program manager at Sandia National Laboratories for the rural utility photovoltaics program. He holds an undergraduate degree in mathematics and a graduate degree in physics from North Texas State University. Early in his career, Larry attended Texas A&M University for one year, studying meteorology as part of his military service. Following this time at Texas A&M, he worked as a weather forecaster for the Air Force at Patrick AFB and he also worked at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in analytical chemistry, conducting fuel and oxidizer analyses. Following his military service, he worked as an agricultural meteorologist for the National Weather Service. For the past 25 years, he specialized in critical infrastructure issues associated with weapons, weapon systems, explosives testing, and energy supply. His last 9 years have been spent in photovoltaic systems. His work in developing a reliability database for installed systems has been unique within the DOE program to establish lifecycle costs for viable applications. He has provided numerous workshops and presentations on photovoltaics to the rural electric community, published papers in Progress in Photovoltaics as well as ASME and ASES and was actively engaged in partnerships with several coops. While at Sandia, he headed the DOE/RUS interagency agreement to expand the use of renewable energy systems to the nation’s rural communities. An important part of his work has been to review the Rural Business Service solar proposals since the inception of Farm Bill 2002. His outside interests include having an advanced class radio amateur license and working part-time for the New Mexico State Forest Service in the area of wildland fi refi ghting.

References

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Published

2023-07-11

How to Cite

Moore, L. ., & Post, H. . (2023). Five Years of Residential Photovoltaic System Experience at Tucson Electric Power . Strategic Planning for Energy and the Environment, 28(2), 58–73. Retrieved from https://journals.riverpublishers.com/index.php/SPEE/article/view/19951

Issue

2008: Vol 28 Iss 2 2008-2009

Section

Articles