Daniel Kirschen, UW Electrical Engineering Close Professor and CEI Faculty Advisory
Board Member, proposed building smart microinverter testbeds at UW for the CETC smart
grid research in May of 2015. With the funding for smart microinverters from Washington
Clean Energy Fund, Prof. Kirschen approached Jan Whittington, UW Urban Design and Planning
Associate Professor and UW Solar Faculty Advisor, to discuss the possibility of building a
PV system on campus to host those smart microinverters. Professor Whittington led students
in UW Solar to develop a 100 KW PV project. Due to the successful collaboration between UW
Solar and UW HFS, HFS generously agreed to use three HFS residence halls, Maple Hall, Alder
Hall, and Elm Hall as the locations of the PV systems. UW Solar seeked further funding
opportunities from the Department of Commerce Grant and Seattle City Light Greenup Grant
to cover the cost of purchasing PV panels and building the system. Later on, Artisan Electric
was selected as the contractor through Request for Proposal (RFP) process. The construction
started in October of 2016 and the project was completed in its entirety in March of 2017.
