Lessons Learned and Performance of Florida's SunSmart Emergency Shelter Program.  The E-Shelter program administered by the Florida Solar Energy Center to design& install& and operate 118 photovoltaic power systems on 118 school shelters for emergency use and normal use.  The systems will reduce the school energy bill and provide electrical power to emergency critical power needs during a power outage.    These grid-tied& utility-interactive& battery storage systems with 10 kw photovoltaic and 33 kwh of battery storage worked most of the time and provided operational data.  There were problems with over-heating& corresion& vandiles& internet connections and school maintainance.

William R. Young1& Susan T. Schleith2 1Florida Solar Energy Center, cocoa, FL, United States /2Florida Solar Energy Center, Cocoa, FL, United States

The Florida Solar Energy Center in partnership with the Florida Energy Office initiated the SunSmart Emergency Shelter School program to install solar electric (photovoltaic) systems on the shelter part of schools in 2010.  This Florida PV On Schools program was designed as an educational and research program that applied a photovolaic utility-interactive grid-tied systems with storage as a viable real time application on shelter schools.  Students, teachers, general public, facility managers and emergency management person were made aware of and educated on photovoltaic technolgy with this hands-on application  The program installed 10 kw PV systems with storage to selected schools emergency shelters to provide backup power in emergencies and reduce energy needs during normal times.   This SunSmart E-shelter program received funding from U.S. Department of Energy and Florida based utility for 118 schools throughout Florida with PV systems to power critical emergency loads in the Enhanced Hurricane Protected Area (EHPA) part of the school.  This project presented several new challenges including code requirements related to site location, resilient PV design, battery storage, building integration, performance monitoring, and maintenance.   In 2022, the Florida Energy Office provided funding to inspect and repair all schools.  This paper presents the challenges and lessons learned on the findings of 12 years of operation.  Many lessons were learned in designing a system  that met all the different school districts requirements and limited emergency power needs.   The shelter PV systems and program is no longer an 'unknown' to the schools.  Only one PV system was demaged during a hurricane as all were designed to code.  Keeping Balance of System (BOS) components operational with cooling fan failures do the heat and corrosion.  Internet connections to the system were difficult to maintain.  Many issues were presented by the people using the shelter during hurricanes and normal times in Florida.