LA Pierce College

A solar powered commitment to sustainability

Imbued with a sense of environmental stewardship by its agricultural roots, Los Angeles Pierce College is a US community college leader in sustainability. Its photovoltaic (PV) and natural gas cogeneration systems are the largest of their kind to be undertaken by a community college in the United States. These systems yield some 4.4 million kW hours of electricity every year. When Pierce wanted new PV farms to support their efforts, they turned to us to design five PV farm car ports.

We designed five PV systems located on car ports in Parking Lots 1, 4, 6 ,7 and 8. Our team provided a multiple array of PV panels, combiner boxes, DC disconnect switches and two inverters, 500kw and 375kw, interfacing with the campus 4.16kV electrical distribution system. The electrical design included layout of the PV farm, wiring details, electrical equipment layout, single line diagram, connection to existing switchboards and load calculations. We also helped optimize the tilt angle of the photovoltaics to maximize kilowatt-hour production. Pierce’s on-site electricity generation got a big boost from the additional PV farms and the school has put its additional capacity to good use with new sustainable construction.