John Deere looks to lower its operating costs by implementing ways of producing green energy on a commercial level. Their goal is to have 40% of their total energy usage be moved to renewable energy sources. For the senior capstone project, the students helped John Deere to reach their goal by compiling documentation that allows for solar panel arrays to be implemented at future John Deere facilities. The group began with researching and documenting information such as panel types, manufacturers, and cost analysis, and finished with a completed active excel sheet that provides foresight and statistical overview of a solar farm’s cost and production at any desired location with any desired configurations and size.
The group used an approach by conducting background research, technical improvement, and financial analyses. The group first gathered as much information as possible regarding the current commercial solar panel products (including their price, life cycle, efficiency, covering an area, power rating, etc.), current John Deere facility locations, solar power generation in different locations in the US, and financial data on adapting solar panels and other hardware necessary to implement a solar farm. Then the group organized and analyzed the data collected, created sheets and graphs to help understand the trend, and found out the best choice for solar panel arrays. The analysis also included potential John Deere facility locations that could implement solar panels with high efficiency.
The result of this Capstone project is a complete report that contains financial analysis for optimal solar panel choice and setup configuration for 5 representative locations in the US, as well as estimated initial cost and capital recovery over time. The completed report also included potential locations for implementation and potential improvement. The final deliverable included an active excel sheet that could provide an automatic calculation for cost and energy production in different locations and sizes of solar panels with a customized selection of components.