Today was my favorite day of the intensive so far. It was so busy and rewarding and very interesting. After giving a short spotlight at school, I drove to Cedar Business Park to meet with Mr. Alex Heard at First Solar where he gave me a one-on-one tour of a production line. To be more specific, we walked from the beginning to the end their Series 6 factory. The facility and assembly method is fascinating; almost the entire production line is automated and run by dozens of highly dexterous and massive robots. I watched as what started out as a normal piece of glass was transformed into what is considered globally to be one of the cheapest and most efficient methods for electricity production. In my research and work in photovolteic labs, I have created many of the same type of solar cells as are being assembled by First Solar (Cadmium Telluride/Chloride-based semi-conductor cells on glass). But this to me was jaw dropping to see. What I had to do by hand in a lab, they were doing on an enormous scale while still achieving precision to the micron level. For a full briefing on how to make a semi-conductor based solar cell, check out my blog from last fall's independent study https://hanksfallintensiveblog2018.wordpress.com/page/1/ .
My tour was fantastically interesting and it lead right to a meeting with another Alex from First Solar who helped me understand more about their internship program and what it would take to get solar production at Maumee Valley. Mr. Alex Kamerer explained to me in detail what First Solar would require before donating solar arrays to MV. Fortunately, the coordination of such action is rather simple; the school needs to hire a consultant (he gave Rudolf-Libbey as an example) to design, organize, and construct fencing, interrogators, wiring, conduit, and inspections. This would all be handled by the contractor and not organized by Maumee Valley which makes it easy from that standpoint. Unfortunately, the price tag for a job like that is quite large, almost $100,000. Naturally, we moved on to discussing ways in which I could make that number smaller by finding donations from subcontractors to eliminate product fees. I'll continue to look at this as I finish out the intensive period this week and pull together a presentation by Thursday.
I returned to school with a couple minutes to spare before the Energy Treasure Hunt. I was joined by a handful of students and Mr. Miller in a walk around the school looking for ways in which energy is being used unnecessarily. Linked below is the compilation of ideas the group generated. I am impressed by the things they noticed and I am happy to say that they brought up some ideas that I had not considered completely before. This was my goal for the Treasure Hunt so I am very pleased with how it turned out. I think I will try to use Energy Treasure Hunt concepts in my final presentation.
On Monday, I will start working on my final project and will explore an opportunity to tour a partner school that has taken strides towards preserving water and electricity on their campus.