We chose a consultant primarily based on two criteria. These were previous experience and willingness to provide all of the services we requested. We worked closely with our system integrator to determine our projected power usage, and to understand how much our power usage could grow before exceeding capacity. This entailed considering every potential power drain at the facility from clocks and pencil sharpeners to lighting and laser printers. We also learned about ghost loads and their potential impacts on our power supply.
Ghost loads are small continuous energy drains from devices.
For example, some televisions or VCRs that are turned off may still draw power. These devices were carefully considered, and where possible, eliminated from our plans. A final step for sizing our system was to verify the integrator's estimate. For this, we used power size load estimating tools available on-line. In summary we estimated the system demand and solar radiation available and sized the system accordingly.