Steve Schaarschmidt
In May 2024, 21 members from the Pikes Peak Section & LMAG, in conjunction with the Pikes Peak Power & Energy Society Chapter, heard a presentation by Steve Schaarschmidt PE, Principal Transmission Operations and Downtown Network engineer with Colorado Spring Utilities. During the presentation, Steve described the 175 MW Pike Solar Array and its operation, which is the largest in the Colorado Springs area.
The next day, eight engineers toured the Pike Solar Array site, hosted by two Operations and Maintenance engineers from JUWI, who built this facility for Deriva (formerly Duke Energy). The company contracts with Colorado Springs Utilities to provide the energy from the array to the city. This facility and other smaller facilities now provide over 20% of the city’s power. The solar array covers over 1300 acres of land and has 415K solar panels that track the sun from east to west.
Each of the subarrays has line-tracking inverters, which convert 600 volts DC from the panels to 34KV, which feeds the power substation. At the substation, multiple 34KV lines are transformed to a 240KV line, which feeds Colorado Springs.
