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7 <br /> 1 <br /> 2 Chris Sandifer: Yes. <br /> 3 <br /> 4 Merrick Parrot: Please describe your experience with solar development. <br /> 5 <br /> 6 Chris Sandifer: I have almost focused totally on solar for the last seven years. <br /> 7 <br /> 8 Merrick Parrot: What is your role in the project? <br /> 9 <br /> 10 Chris Sandifer: I do a lot of site evaluations. I determine if they are compatible with the utility <br /> 11 interconnections; also other aspects of compatibility. I look at the design for efficiency, and <br /> 12 review a lot of the designs for that. Also I do the medium voltage installs as the electrical <br /> 13 contractor. <br /> 14 <br /> 15 Merrick Parrot: Were you engaged by the Applicant to testify this evening? <br /> 16 <br /> 17 Chris Sandifer: I was. <br /> 18 <br /> 19 Merrick Parrot: Thank you. I would now tender Mr. Sandifer as a qualified expert witness in <br /> 20 the field of Mechanical Engineering, and development of solar farms. <br /> 21 <br /> 22 Chris Sandifer: Good evening Chairman McKee and the members of the Commission. I want <br /> 23 to describe a little bit about what a solar farm is, and if at some point in time you want to raise <br /> 24 your hand, I can speed up. Basically the main components are solar panels and they are <br /> 25 mounted on racks and the racks are mounted to steel posts, which are driven into the ground. <br /> 26 The output of those solar panels go to an inverter, which converts the output of the solar panel, <br /> 27 which is a DC direct current, into an AC current, which you would have at your house. Then <br /> 28 there is a transformer which matches the output of the inverter to the —whatever the local utility <br /> 29 distribution voltage would be. <br /> 30 <br /> 31 Basically, I just wanted to tell you that's what we're doing. We're using mono-crystalline, or <br /> 32 poly-crystalline silicone panels. They are safe and they don't have any toxic chemicals in them. <br /> 33 They don't leach. They can be disposed of in an environmentally responsible manner at the <br /> 34 end of their life. The facility will be not be lit so there will be no light trespass. These panels are <br /> 35 coated with an anti-glare coating to make them more efficient. What we are trying to do is <br /> 36 capture the light, and turn it into electricity, not have light bounce off and wasted. These are <br /> 37 very efficient for doing that. These panels - and the nature of them - they don't take light from <br /> 38 somewhere else. They just use the light that would naturally fall on that area of the ground — <br /> 39 that would be intercepted by these panels. These —they have a fan and they do make noise <br /> 40 when they are at full load, but that noise is dissipated to undetectable in the background where <br /> 41 this one is. I did the math on this one, and it's — it would be one-eighth the noise that would <br /> 42 normally be in the background during the day. And, of course, they don't make any noise at <br /> 43 night. There is no smell, there is no dust, there is no radiation. These panels use no nuclear <br /> 44 radiation. <br /> 45 <br /> 46 I would like to address the EMF (electromagnetic force) because sometimes that is a concern. <br /> 47 There are actually two different kinds of EMF, that's electromagnetic force that would be around <br /> 48 these devices. The first one is a DC, which would be very similar to a battery that is in your car. <br /> 49 It will be a higher voltage, but that would be the analogy. I have gone around these panels — <br /> 50 three, fifteen watt panels— and taken my boy-scout compass. And they always point north. <br /> 51 The electromagnetic field of the earth is a lot strong than these panels produce. They do <br />