Push energy transformation, Donghua University campus is the most energetic! Large power users in universities are generally not equipped with optoelectronics, ring group: should be listed as USR evaluation

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Energy education is an important part of energy transformation, and the school itself is also a big user of electricity, so how many photovoltaic panels are installed on the campus roof?

In recent years, the Ministry of Education has promoted "University Social responsibility" (USR) loudly. Last year, the Ministry of Education even advocated the integration of USR with the United Nations Sustainable Development indicators (SDGs). The Ministry of Education issued a briefing in July last year, saying: "National schools include 205 national universities and state high schools, 176 schools equipped with rooftop solar panels, and the rate of installing solar panels has reached 86%." However, the ring delegation questioned that the data were vague and the results were unclear. "is it possible that schools only need to install a photoelectric board to meet the standards?"

Tsai Hui-hsun, director of the Earth Citizens Foundation, believes that since clean energy is an important indicator of SDGs, national universities should give full play to their social responsibility and energy citizenship and promote rooftop photovoltaics, and schools should not stay out of it.

Jiaotong University is located in the science and technology town is also a major user of electricity, but the roof of the campus is not obviously equipped with solar photovoltaics. (Google screenshot) the Ministry of Education underestimates the photoelectric potential of the school roof.

At the end of last year, the Ministry of Education re-checked the roofs of national universities and national high schools and reported that the total power generation potential was estimated to be 144 MW, and the number of solar panel schools had increased to 179, with an installed capacity of 107 MW. But is this number more or less? Open the Google map and randomly click on the roof of a national university campus, and you can still see that many roofs have not yet been installed with solar photovoltaic panels, making people can't help but put a question mark on the inventory data.

It is worth noting that Donghua University, which was rated as excellent last year (2020), has reached 3.4MW in terms of optoelectronic equipment on campus, and the school's inventory potential is still 5.6 MW, totaling 9 MW. In comparison, the total amount of roof inventory of 205 state schools (including 50 national universities) by the Ministry of Education is only equivalent to what 16 Donghua campuses can provide, obviously underestimating the potential of campus roofs. It also highlights that there should still be a lot of room for photovoltaics on the roofs of other national universities.

There are not many photovoltaic panels on the roof of the campus of National Taiwan University. (Google screenshot) Hualien ranks third from the bottom of the national sunshine, Donghua University goes against the trend and comes first.

If we make good use of the roof of the campus, we can make great contributions to the transformation of energy. Hualien County, where Donghua University is located, is one of the weakest sunny places in the country, but it is the university campus that can generate electricity best.

According to statistics on the power generation capacity of counties and cities acquired by Taiwan Power last year, the annual generating capacity of each KW photovoltaic panel in Hualien is only 870kWh, which is even less than that of Ilan in the north (877kWh), barely beating Taipei City with many buildings (847kWh) and Keelung (775kWh), which often rains.

Qiu Yicheng, head of the camp equipment team at Donghua University, said that Hualien has a pleasant climate, but it is located in the east of the Central Mountains, setting half an hour earlier than in the west, so when President Wu Maokun promoted roof photovoltaics during his term of office in 2013, he consulted manufacturers everywhere to evaluate the lack of sunshine in Hualien. I don't want to come in.

It was not until the cost of solar photovoltaic panels was reduced in 2018 that manufacturers entered the market to set up the first batch of 0.5 MW. Encouraged by the policy, they were added one after another from 2018 to 2019, with a total installation capacity of 3.4 MW at present. Qiu Yicheng said that Donghua earns more than one million yuan a year by renting out optoelectronic roofs, and photovoltaic roofs have also become part of the cooperative teaching field between the school's materials department and the optoelectronics department.

The roof of Donghua University is equipped with 3.4 MW photovoltaic panels (courtesy of National Donghua University)

Qiu Yicheng believes that in general, the roof of school buildings is flat, so it is easy to worry about water leakage, but Donghua University mostly has sloping roofs, and there are fewer water leakage problems, which is a major advantage. Moreover, many Donghua students rely on motorcycles, and photovoltaic panels can be installed on the roofs of many locomotives in the school.

At present, Donghua estimates that the whole campus still has nearly 5.6MW potential to be developed. At present, as the feeder is saturated and is waiting for Taiwan Power feeder to cooperate, the entire Donghua University is moving towards 10MW and becoming a veritable green energy campus in China.

The locomotive shed of Donghua University is also equipped with photovoltaic panels (provided by Donghua University) the Ministry of Education: not every school and every roof is suitable for optoelectronics.

Green energy stocktaking in charge of the Ministry of Education