SOLAR INSTALLATIONS
Figure 6-25: Left, PV power system anchored to a flat concrete roof slab in Caguas; right, closeup of bolted connection.
6.2.3 Non-Residential Photovoltaic Systems This section represents a summary of MAT observations of non-residential rooftop PV systems. The MAT did not encounter solar water heaters in use on non-residential buildings.
6.2.3.1 Susana Centeno Family Health Center, Vieques The Susana Centeno Family Health Center is a general acute care hospital. Its primary function is to provide inpatient diagnostic and therapeutic services for a variety of medical conditions, both surgical and non-surgical, to the community. The facilities were built in 1996, and the Vieques Rural Outpatient Clinic of the Veterans Affairs Caribbean Healthcare System, which is a Satellite of the San Juan Veterans Affairs Medical Center, was established on January 29, 2011, to improve access to Primary Care services for veterans in Vieques. It is estimated that wind speeds in Vieques were near the design wind speed per ASCE 7-05, which is 145 mph (233 kph). A nearby weather station located 18 miles (29 kilometers) northeast of Vieques at the Culebrita Lighthouse reported a peak three-second wind gust of 138 mph (222 kph), and it is estimated that the maximum wind speeds were from the southeast (Figure 6-36). The MAT assessed the PV power system installed on the roof of the acute general hospital Susana Centeno Family Health Center in Vieques. The PV system was installed in 2016 with a capacity of 30 KW with a cost investment of $126,0002 (State Office of Public Energy Policy 2016). The PV panels shown in Figure 6-26 are on the south portion of the roof edge. For Hurricane Maria, this was the windward edge of the roof building that received the strongest winds. For this facility, the performance of the PV panels with respect to wind loads was poor. Panels were observed to have failed due to wind-borne debris impact (Figure 6-27) and failure of the panels’ clamp connection (Figure 6-30). Figures 6-28 through 6-33 show close-up views of the clamping mechanism used to attach the PV panels to the aluminum frame system; the clamp connection consisted of stainless-steel
2 This
is approximately $155,000 in inflation-adjusted September 2017 dollars.
HURRICANES IRMA AND MARIA IN PUERTO RICO
MITIGATION ASSESSMENT TEAM REPORT
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