Stevenshof Special
On April 6, 2002 the latest addition of an array of in total 28 PV panels in the Joke Smit street in the Stevenshof neighborhood of Leiden was officially connected to the public grid. A big party had been organized by the happy inhabitants of the flat apartment building who are the proud owners of these PV panels. The sun was setting a spring record level while the owners, guests and officials had a splash time. Special about 16 of these these PV panels is that their owners rent their apartments. For households that rent their homes it is legally much more difficult to have PV panels installed on their roofs than for homeowners. Very particular is that the landlord company that owns the apartment building (Portaal, www.portaal.nl) agreed to buy six panels that will serve to supply electrical power for the community space inside the building. Six of the panels are installed on the roof of a single-family home next to the flat apartment building .
The project was initiated in 2000 by one of the inhabitants, Peter Segaar, who decided to participate in the Solaris project by Greenpeace. Peter managed to convince other inhabitants to participate as well, and spurred by the special 2001 action by NUON and Milieudienst West-Holland, some of these inhabitants bought additional PV panels. At the end of 2001 there were 20 panels on the roof generating electricity.
At the very end of 2002 negociations with the landlord were succesfully concluded and the final six additional PV panels could be ordered. These are 100 Wp panels manufactured by Shell Solar and equipped with OK4E inverters manufactured by NKF. The elctrical utility company, NUON has installed the panels. Here are some pictures illustrating his impressive achievement.
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part
of the array on the roof of the building
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seen
from a different angle
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the
6 panels on the neighbor's roof
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the
apartment building
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commemoration
trophy
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PV
on models
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