Survey and design a commercial solar and battery system

What is going on

Kingsley Grammar School wants a 99 kW rooftop photovoltaic system and a 100 kWh battery on its sports centre, job J-26-1171, and needs generation and savings figures for its board meeting on 20 October. The sports centre has a north-facing metal deck roof with a row of skylights, a tree line on the eastern boundary, and a main switchboard rated at 400 A per phase that already supplies the pool plant and the air conditioning. The school has interval metering data for the past year. Network rules limit export for systems of this size and require an export control device. The battery must go in a plant room that also houses the pool chemical dosing equipment.

Your brief

Plan and complete a safe site survey, gather the information the design needs, produce a preliminary design and generation estimate that meets the standards and the network's connection rules, identify a compliant battery location, and prepare a draft quotation for the Solar and Battery Manager's review.

Work through it

You do not need to do it all. Doing a few of these will show you what the work is like. Your ticks and notes stay on this device.

• Read the rooftop solar and battery installation procedure and complete a job safety analysis for the roof access, including edge protection, skylight protection and weather limits.
• Complete the site survey: roof dimensions, pitch, orientation, condition, skylight positions, shading from the tree line, roof access points and the switchboard, metering and existing supply arrangement.
• Assess the main switchboard's capacity and protection for the inverter connection and identify the export control and isolation requirements from the network rules.
• Evaluate the proposed battery location against the standard's clearance, ventilation, fire separation and hazardous location requirements, and recommend a compliant location if the plant room is not suitable.
• Prepare a preliminary array layout and string design, select the inverter and battery configuration, and produce a generation estimate using the school's interval data and the shading assessment.
• Draft the quotation using the quotation template with a numbered scope, materials, labour, exclusions, testing and commissioning and handover documents.
• Update job J-26-1171 with the survey findings, the design summary and the quotation reference, and note the network application requirements.
• Write a one page summary for the school's board with the generation estimate, savings basis and the assumptions behind them.

What someone in this role would produce

• Completed job safety analysis for the roof survey
• Site survey record with measurements, shading and switchboard findings
• Preliminary design with array layout, string design, inverter and battery selection and generation estimate
• Draft quotation on the template
• One page board summary