Florida Solar Energy Center

Case Study

Live-In Residential Retrofit Study

Florida Solar Energy Center, known as Florida Solar or FSEC, is a not-for-profit research organization associated with the University of Central Florida in Orlando. They provide research data for study by energy organizations in Florida and in the solar energy space. PowerWise provided the data collection system and sensors to facilitate a study of energy use in solar retrofit homes.

From the study report

“The Florida Solar Energy Center (FSEC) conducted energy performance monitoring of two existing residences in Central Florida that were undergoing various retrofits. These homes were occupied by FSEC researchers and were fully instrumented to yield detailed energy, temperature, and humidity measurements. The data gave feedback about the performance of two levels of retrofit in two types of homes in a hot-humid climate. This report covers a moderate-level retrofit and includes 2 years of pre-retrofit data to characterize the impact of improvements. The other home, covered in a separate report (Parker and Sherwin 2012), is a deep energy retrofit that has performed at near zero energy with a photovoltaic system and extensive envelope improvements.”

Unique Research Study Perspective

Florida Solar staff took the unusual step of occupying the homes. They lived in the measured environment rather than merely reporting on it, giving them additional insight into how data reflects in experience.

The report intended to guide policy and standards for solar retrofits in hot-humid climate areas. Read the published report.

Energy Management Hardware

PowerWise provided energy and environmental instrumentation to Florida Solar for several projects, with dozens of monitoring systems in the field under their supervision.

The components of the data collection system included the SiteSage wireless gateway, SiteSage electricity meter, relative humidity sensor, VOC sensor, and CO2 sensor. PowerWise is a leading distributor of the SiteSage Energy Management platform.