Solar Holiday Lighting Display

Downtown Springfield’s holiday window display is a festive as ever,
but this year it includes a modern twist, it is powered entirely by the sun!

Personnel, HB Energy Solutions: Tom Hernon, Owner. Brian Hernon, Installation, Mitch Sidd, Solar Sales
Stephanie Gibson of the Springfield Family Center and Kelly Stettner for Black River Action Team (not pictured) who decorated the windows, and Larry Traineanu of NEIS computer consulting, who provided the 3 prime downtown spaces that are currently unoccupied.

HB Energy Solutions of Springfield, VT in conjunction with Springfield on the Move and the Family Center has installed a temporary solar electric system (photovoltaic) on the roof of the building to power the display.

Lawrence Traineanu, an active member of the community and also the owner of the building had the original idea.  As the display area does not have any electricity, Traineanu approached HB Energy to see if a solar electric system could be utilized.

Mitch Sidd of HB Energy showed Traineanu their “solar camp system” which consists of a single solar panel, a battery charge controller, an inverter, and 4 batteries to store the energy produced by the panel to be used at night when the sun goes down.  Depending on the application, the system size can be increased or decreased in size.

Sidd installed the necessary electrical components and batteries on the first floor of the building while Brian Hernon of HB Energy installed the panel on the roof.  “It was interesting getting up there, Hernon said.  To get the maximum amount of sun we needed to put the panel on the top of the building.  The top floor tenant was kind enough to let us set a ladder up in her living room, and crawl through her tiled ceiling to another hatch that led to the roof.  Once on top of the building, a location with decent southern exposure was found to secure the panel.  We lowered the cables down the side of the building and plugged them into the camp system.  A quick check of the digital readout confirmed we were making electricity with the sun.”  The entire installation took only a couple hours.

The camp system uses the suns energy in conjunction with batteries to supply electricity to the storefronts. HB Energy Solutions donated the use of this system for the holiday season.

The camp system uses the suns energy in conjunction with batteries to supply electricity to the storefronts. HB Energy Solutions donated the use of this system for the holiday season.
	Camp System Description: 4- 224 amp hour batteries 1000 watt sine wave inverter 25 amp charge controller 90 watt PV module

To find out more information on the system that was installed and other solar energy options stop by and see the solar energy show room on bridge street in Springfield Vermont.