Wave Farm, a non-profit arts organization and pioneer of the Transmission Arts genre, has collaborated with SunCommon to solarize its 29-acre campus, including a Study Center and a dozen media art installations, as well as its FM broadcast tower site, by replacing non-renewable energy sources with 48.6 kW of solar power.
SunCommon, an iSun company and B-Corp based in Rhinebeck, New York, is also an underwriter of Wave Farm’s radio station and recently produced a series of short films capturing the creativity of Wave Farm’s site-specific installations. The solar company has long believed in the power of the arts to inspire, inform, and bring more people into the clean energy movement.
“Just as Wave Farm has created a space to explore the significance of transmitting or receiving as the fulcrum of the artist’s intention; SunCommon receives and translates the abundant energy transmitted from the sun into a force for good for every organization with whom we proudly partner,” said Tavit Geudelekian, integrated marketing director at SunCommon.
The company, which celebrates its tenth year in business in 2022, is also the creator of the Climate Action Film Festival, held annually in March since 2019. Wave Farm recognizes its 25th anniversary this year.
“We always intended to be solar-powered,” said Galen Joseph-Hunter, executive director at Wave Farm. “It was only when we started working with SunCommon that we discovered that we could not only power the property and the installations, but through remote net-metering also offset the incredible consumption at our radio station’s tower site. It was a dream come true.”
The Wave Farm solar project is an expression of how renewable energy can empower the next generation of researchers and artists who will use their facilities to make their art and to broaden and challenge their audiences to think differently about the world in which we live.
News item from SunCommon
I find this project interesting in that from the picture I see about 216 solar PV panels that seems to come out to 225Wp per panel, to make an array of 46.8kWp. With that roof area available one could have specified First Solar utility scale panels and loaded that roof with 162 First Solar panels and have the ability to generate 72.9kWp or use Jinko Solar TopCON solar PV panels ( manufactured in Florida) at 24% efficiency and generate right around 81kWp. Get a government grant install these panels and a Megapack to show the World what a small business can do even in New York State. Imagine what an array like this could do in the U.S. south and southwest with from 6 to 10 sun hours a day.