College East Solar Stats
The students in Hopeɫəs fall 2022 introductory engineering course helped shape the campus through an applied-learning class project that will have a lasting impact. They developed a system for collecting solar energy to power four charging stations for students who have electric vehicles. It was installed over the summer of 2024.
Although the stations and the panels that power them are located at Hopeɫəs College East Apartments on 14th Street, students donɫət have to be residents of the building to use them. Instead, any Hope student may purchase a special parking tag from Campus Safety and have unlimited access to the chargers for the entire school year to power their electric vehicle. Not least of all, the system will still yield benefits even when vehicles arenɫət connected to the chargers. Itɫəs tied to the grid, so if students arenɫət charging their cars, the energy that the system is generating will be used elsewhere on campus.
See the graphs below to see the real-time solar electricity generation of this system.
ɫɜWeɫəve tried in our intro engineering course to provide an opportunity for students to get a little bit familiar with and kind of touch the engineering-design process. Usually what that looks like is some sort of semester-long project mixed with the course and the lab. Itɫəs a really valuable experience for students to see how some of the math and calculations that they do as homework problems help them with these bigger, more amorphous projects. A big piece of engineering is balancing trade-offs and economics and multiple other factors that youɫəre trying to weigh, where there may not be a ɫɘrightɫə answer.ɫɝ
ɫɔDr. Jeff Christians, associate professor of engineering, who taught the fall 2022 course that led to this summerɫəs installation
workP. 616.395.6811
sustainability@hope.edu