25,000 Watts of Solar Power for our Wastewater Treatment Plant in Hailey, Idaho
Online November 25th 2010, this 25kW solar electric system is the largest PV solar power project in the County or Central Idaho municipal area. A year long project for me, the largest PV system I ever put up. This project was the result of a large Federal Grant that funded The City of Hailey. Tracy Anderson and I were the primary Grant Authors. I engineered the project, wrote the RFP and acted as Project Manager for the City of Hailey from bid through commissioning. The PV system is a unique self-tracking design specially designed for flat roofs by Solyndra. Rick Roberts the Electrical contractor discovered this new product made in California – the entire project is from USA-manufactured products. All of the Power is consumed on-site by the City’s largest energy consumer – their wastewater treatment plant, although the meter can still spin backwards at times to back-feed the grid. We have an online data logger to view output. The project also includes an air-air heat recovery retrofit (ERV/HRV) of another building on the same site. Another HVAC energy retrofit project that will payback in less than a few years time.
Here’s a link to a ho-hum newspaper article and a photo
http://www.mtexpress.com/index2.php?ID=2005133926
500 Tube Sagebrush Solar Thermal Array – Public Safety Facility in Hailey, Idaho
Commissioned December 21, 2010, this is another giant solar project for this area, This four row array of 500 evacuated heat pipe solar collector tubes is roof mounted and self-tracking. The system stores 1200 gallons of solar heated hot water in an atmospheric site-built drainback storage tank. The facility it serves (a County Jail as well as the County law enforcement headquarters) uses over 50,000 gallons of hot water a month, the solar system offsets over 75% of that energy load with a simple economic payback within 12 years. Billy Mann of Sagebrush Solar Inc. headed up the concept and design of the system. He and I partnered to win a juried competitive bid for the project award. All materials in the project are American made. Billy and I installed 90% of the system ourselves with a hand from Precision Plumbing and Roberts Electric. A real hands-on out of the office project for me again, thats what this last year has been all about. This is the largest thermal solar project in the area – the only other project of this size is another 500 tube system very much like this one that I engineered and installed about 120 miles away for a remote airport site which was also completed this year. That system is a radiant floor heat system with a large wood fired boiler backup.
Here’s a link to a snarky newsrag article and a photo – I’m the “construction worker”.
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