Green Box Solar: Winner of the APsystems 2023 Commercial Solar Project of the Year Award

Green Box Solar LLC, led by Owner Drew Michener, clinched the coveted title of the APsystems 2023 Commercial Solar Project of the Year for its impressive installation in Logan, Utah.

PreviousNext

1234

Central Valley Machine, a sprawling manufacturing facility spanning over 150,000 square feet, was the canvas for Green Box Solar’s latest triumph. Tasked with offsetting the energy consumption of this mammoth operation, Green Box Solar embarked on an ambitious venture, harnessing the power of sunlight to fuel Central Valley Machine’s operations and championed the ethos of clean, renewable energy in the heart of Utah’s manufacturing landscape.

With an impressive capacity of 810 kW, this project marked a significant milestone for Green Box Solar, showcasing its prowess in tackling large-scale commercial installations. Notably, the project utilized APsystems QT2 Microinverters, a pioneering choice that underlined Green Box Solar’s commitment to innovation and cutting-edge technology. Michener explains, “Installation and monitoring were all very familiar, thanks to the seamless integration of APsystems microinverters to a commercial system.”

Green Box Solar’s commitment to empowering home and business owners with solar solutions that are simple, hassle-free, and tailored to individual needs shines through in every project. With a team boasting over 25 years of collective expertise in solar design, sales, installation, and finance, Green Box Solar epitomizes accessibility and excellence in solar solutions. Congratulations!

See other 2023 project winners here

APsystems Project Award Residential Winner – Apollo Solar

The owners of a house nestled in an Indiana suburb were dealing with a variety of issues. Firstly, due to a poorly installed chimney flashing, the roof sustained water damage and needed replacing. That meant that their current 45-panel solar array had to be completely removed. However, this obstacle quickly turned into an opportunity for Apollo Solar to install a much more efficient solar energy system for the homeowners. 

Due to regulations the neighborhood’s homeowner association had at the time of the first install in 2016, the panels were currently positioned on the shadier back side of the house. On top of that, the previous installer did not have the best practices, leaving the homeowners with loose cables, extended rails, odd panel layouts, and conduit resting on gutters. Now, in 2022, no homeowner association regulations were stopping Apollo Solar from placing the panels on the much sunnier front side—-and doing the job right this time.

With this house being located in shady suburbia, installing inverters at each panel to maximize output just made sense. By using APsystems microinverters, Apollo Solar was not only able to optimize their client’s solar panels but give them the power to monitor each panel individually and, ultimately, give them confidence in their solar system that they didn’t have before. 

Congratulations to Apollo Solar and their “45-Panel Uninstall-Reinstall” project for being awarded APsystems Residential Solar Project of the Year for 2022!

See more pictures for this project here.

Learn more about other 2022 project winners here.

APsystems Project Award Commercial Winner – Sustainable Living Innovations with Adkisson Electric

The Belltown district in downtown Seattle is the city’s most densely populated neighborhood. Known for its vibrant nightlife, it boasts some of the area’s best restaurants, galleries, and music venues. It now also has the distinct privilege of being home to the world’s first high rise apartment building given the highly coveted Net Zero designation by ILFI (International Living Future Institute). 

Designed and built by Sustainable Living Innovations, the fifteen story building is unironically located on Battery Street and represents the pinnacle of sustainable architecture and design. Sustainable Living Innovations uses its patented building technology, which incorporates all necessary mechanical, electrical, and plumbing infrastructure into wall panels that are fabricated off-site to specification. Once the wall panels are completed, they are delivered to the project site and placed, much like legos, on the building’s steel frame. This process has huge benefits including an accelerated time to market, as delays due to PNW weather are no longer a factor, as well as much less material and labor force waste when compared to traditional construction methods. 

The largest contributor to the energy savings is the use of 622 solar panels, expertly installed by Adkisson Electric, which adorn a large section of the building’s facade as well as the rooftop terrace and balconies. Using over 300 YC600 microinverters from APsystems and in conjunction with a combination of PV panels from QCell and Lumos, the on-site solar array generates roughly 210k kilowatt hours annually. The microinverters also come equipped with power factor control capability which allows for power factor adjustment according to utility, transformer, or battery requirements from the building’s energy storage system.

Making up the difference are several other energy saving systems that include a DC low voltage lighting system and a waste heat recovery system from SHARC that pulls heat from hot gray water and converts it back into energy that is then stored for future use.

The 303 Battery building is truly one of a kind but with Sustainable Living Innovations lighting the way, we can be sure it won’t stay that way for long. 

APsystems is very proud to award the APsystems Commercial Project of the Year for 2023 to Sustainable Living Innovations with Adkisson Electric for their revolutionary 303 Battery project!

See more pictures and video for this project here.

Learn more about other 2022 project winners here.

APsystems had many worthy commercial entries for this year’s installation awards. But we must say that the winning project’s narrative is particularly complex and exciting. The elements of it are agriculture, North American-built panels, installer-designed proprietary and newly-patented components, and a substantial contingent of APsystems’ YC1000 inverters…all joined under the aegis of solar power.

The firm that took on the project, A.G. Technologies, is a beacon in the Illinois solar industry. Its guiding spirit, Jim Straeter, is familiar enough with the ecological and financial benefits of ‘following the sun’ to adopt it as a secular gospel. And its company sensibility is entirely in-house, with no subcontracting of project elements.

A.G. Technologies’ incorporation of micro-inverter units in their installations, and their use of North American-made panels, makes them both a premium installer and a profoundly meaningful influence in the field. The company that contracted the array, Beck’s Superior Hybrids, was familiar with A.G. Technologies before work began; the company already had three large systems up and running courtesy of A.G. when the El Paso site work launched. Like other forward-thinking companies, Beck’s is fully on board with the substantial economic and environmental rewards of using solar power for commercial operations.

The YC1000 inverters were tailor made for the A.G. Technologies El Paso project. Due to the unusually stout power capabilities of the unit, the A.G. team was able to conduct the installation without the use of transformers and connect directly to the grid; quoting Straeter, “Microinverters in general make designing a project easy and the per-panel reporting makes post-install maintenance much less costly, and improves up-time of the project.” Additionally, the YC1000’s 480v design keeps wire size costs manageable, resulting in considerable savings.

In the end, the Beck’s Superior Hybrids El Paso location employed 30 arrays with 26 Hanwha Q Cell 430w Duo panels, each array using 9 APsystems YC1000 inverters. And a special shout-out to A.G. and their proprietary designs, which were used to facilitate the project and improve performance: the patented Solarcam™ stand that supports each panel, and the side-mount trencher that makes installation safer, faster and cheaper.

We give three cheers to A.G. Technologies and Jim Straeter for their generosity of spirit, their gift for invention in creating the right tool, their advocacy for solar power as a direct competitor of utility-based power, and their remarkable innovation.

Learn more about other 2021 project winners here.