The Secretary of the Future

By: Aditya Katewa, Justin Keizer, Dean Kidder-Buell,

Casey Leong

Location

The solar farm would be located on the east shore of Stafford Lake in Novato.
The panels will be angled to pull in all optimal rays of light, which is aided by
the mountains natural slope.
Since the land is undeveloped we will not have to move or tear anything
down
Area of site is 1 acre or 43560 ft2

Potential Layout

Our Plan
Our goal for this project is to build and install a solar farm to provide solar energy
for the area.

The panels would be installed on an undeveloped plot of land

This would provide Novato with a clean source of energy

Putting in these solar panels would decrease the smog across Novato and
other cities by encouraging other areas to go green

Our Panels.

The panel models are the X-22 Series 360 Commercial Solar Panels

They come at a cost of $0.85 per watt, and with a total of 900,000 watts, and
factoring the rebate and shipping and handling, the price would come to
approximately $584,153.32

For panel logistics, visit the site below:

https://us.sunpower.com/sites/sunpower/files/media-library/data-sheets/ds-x2
2-series-360-commercial-solar-panels-helix-compatible.pdf

Our Policy Over Time

With an initial cost of $584,153.32, the power plant would be able to produce
approximately an overall amount of 1.374 gWh on a yearly basis, out of
Marins 636 gWh residential use

With the utilization of the new solar farm, the amount of energy produced per
year will be equivalent to burning 219 tons of coal, which provides savings of
approximately $20,000 per year, meaning that it would pay itself off within
28.75 years

By removing this many tons of coal, this would result in the prevention of
626.34 tons of coal from being emitted by energy production facilities and
other factories across the U.S.

Flora

Scarce Trees
Small Grass
Wildflowers
Bushes
Shrubs

Effects on Plants
The potential environmental impacts associated with solar panels are water use
and the use of hazardous materials in manufacturing. Both of these can harm
plants but still dont outweigh the positives of solar panels. As for direct human
interference, such as driving and installation, some plants within the vicinity would
definitely regress or be harmed. Over time, the lack of prolonged human activity
would result in some smaller grasses and wildflowers to grow within the area, so
the overall effect on plants would be balanced out.