Bingham and Temperance Solar, Michigan, USA

In partnership with J Ranck Electric, Inc

Temperance Solar and Bingham Solar are two projects that were engineered by SEI Professional Services (SEIPS).  The sites are located in Michigan and are 29.7 MWDC and 29.3 MWDC in size, respectively.  SEIPS, in a partnership with J-Ranck Electric of Mount Pleasant, MI, provided Civil, Structural, and Electrical engineering and assisted with commissioning.  The substations for each project were prepared in-house by SEIPS under the supervision of our medium/high voltage engineer.

The project is designed with ATI trackers, Bifacial TrinaSolar PV modules, and Solectria XGI string inverters. Unique characteristics of the project included custom prefabricated string inverter racks that were dropped in-place for quick and efficient integration on-site. The soils exhibit a high potential for frost heave, which required the use of deep piles to resist the adfreeze uplift forces. The sites were relatively flat, requiring some creative drainage plans for erosion control and storm-water infrastructure.

Commissioning support included measurement and analysis of all PV source circuit I-V curves, over 5,000 strings. Capacity tests were performed by SEIPS per ASTM-E2848-13 on both projects as part of the acceptance by the project’s owner, National Grid. Multiple linear regression (a statistical technique that uses several explanatory variables to predict the outcome of a response variable) was used to compare actual vs modeled (expected) system performance under the same environmental variables.

Both projects were designed simultaneously by SEIPS staff and were installed on-schedule by J-Ranck. The projects were commissioned and turned over to National Grid in the fall of 2020 and will feed clean renewable energy to the grid for years to come!

Photos and Video Footage courtesy of J Ranck Electric, Inc.