Cedar Hill State Park

The official address of the park is
1570 W. Farm-To-Market Road 1382, Cedar Hill, TX 75104
Directions to this address is not always accurate with the Apple navigation app. If a visitor navigates here using the Google Maps app, they will be taken directly to the front door. Maps and directions can also be found on the following official website:
http://tpwd.texas.gov/state-parks/cedar-hill/map

Tour Hours: 10am - 4pm

Note: The Park Headquarters is staffed by park personnel who can answer questions about the solar initiatives at Cedar Hill State Park. The Solar display is located in the Headquarters parking lot. Park admission fees only apply for recreation inside the park, but not to view the panels.

map

The Cedar Hill State Park solar project is one of 25 solar installations at 18 TPWD facilities across Texas.

At Cedar Hill State Park 11 strings of 12 photovoltaic panels (132 panels total) work together to provide up to 30 kilowatts (kW) of power. The array is mounted on an elevated structure so that visitors can see the full layout of the design.

 

Renewable energy features

Solar PV

kW 30
Installation Date : December 2011
Installer: Gridpoint

Equipment

SMA Inverters & Sunny Web Box Monitoring

Retail Electric Provider

GEXA

 

Green features:

It’s a Park

Host Comments

The Cedar Hill State Park solar project is one of 25 solar installations at 18 TPWD facilities across Texas, from Fort Davis to Wichita Falls. The smallest TPWD solar installation is a 5 kW system at Davis Mountains State Park, with most installations falling into the 20 kW range.

At Cedar Hill State Park 11 strings of 12 photovoltaic panels (132 panels total) work together to provide up to 30 kilowatts (kW) of power. The system uses 1 Sunny Boy 8000 inverter and 4 Sunny Boy 5000 inverters. The array is mounted on an elevated structure so that visitors can see the full layout of the design. Thanks to the solar installation, the agency is shaving more than 45,000 kWh annually off its energy usage equating to a reduction of more than 30 Metric Tons of CO2 emissions. That’s equivalent to the CO2 emissions from 3,500 gallons of gasoline!
http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/solar

Funding for the TPWD solar projects came from federal stimulus grants that provided for 80 percent reimbursement of eligible project costs under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
TPWD will receive $2.9 million in reimbursements through the State Energy Conservation Office who oversaw the grant money from the Department of Energy, says Andee Chamberlain, Sustainability Programs Manager for TPWD¹s Infrastructure Division, who directs the solar grant program.

“Our solar installations not only generate renewable energy in keeping with the agency mission of protecting and conserving the natural resources of Texas, but also represent a considerable savings to the state parks operations budget,” Chamberlain says. “Typically, it¹s best to spend money on energy efficiency measures first and then move on to more expensive renewables, but we decided to break that rule because of the one-time opportunity to obtain federal grant funds.” Now that the solar installations are complete, the agency is considering ways to further reduce energy consumption through energy efficiency measures.

Downloads

Texas Parks and Wildlife Department Solar Brochure (11.8 MB PDF)

Texas Parks and Wildlife Department 30x40 Solar Power poster, as seen above (610 KB PDF)