White Mountain Energy Project (WMEP)

WMEP NEWS... WMRS turns on Sunny Boy inverters December 6, sending power to Southern California Edison and turning our meter backward! Based on 2 months of data, we now predict that winter and summer solar output from the Pace Lab roof will be comparable; about 50 KWh per sunny day. See chart (excel file) Barcroft Field Station switches to solar! In late July we "flipped the switch" and turned off the diesel generator for the first time this summer. The quiet was deafening! Since then we have been running the station with about 75% solar/battery power and 25% diesel. The next stage of the project (summer 2008) is to install the Capstone C-30 Microturbine Generator and heat exchanger. Other news stories: 5...roof installation 4...panel assembly 3...hydronic inst. 2...energy woes 1...$255,000 award
	Inverter system in Barcroft DEG (Distributed Energy Generation) room. Two units on left are 5000 watt "Sunny Boy" inverters, which invert the DC output from the rooftop solar panels into split single phase 240V AC current. The four black units are "Outback VFX3648" units which are slaved together to produce split single phase 240V AC current also. The outback inverters produce electrical output as a type of uninterruptible power supply, drawing off the "Hawker 6-85-21 SCO1" batteries (foreground in green) when there is no input power, and charging the batteries when solar, line, or generator electric power is available. The Sunny Boy inverters automatically synchronize with the power coming out of the Outback inverters.

PROJECT SUMMARY

The goal of the Whi;te Mountain Energy Project is to improve energy quality and reliability, increase safety, reduce costs, and test innovative technologies at WMRS field stations. The first phase of this project will be to assess the energy situation at the upper field station at Barcroft (and secondarily, Crooked Creek). The current energy situation at Barcroft is problematic for several reasons.

• The power delivery system is unreliable. Reliable, clean power is critical to the scientific aspects of running the station, and in winter, for safety. see news story above for details in 2006
• Electricity bills are very large, totaling approximately $15,000 in 2002. Much of the electricity is used to heat buildings. The frigid winters at Barcroft necessitate an efficient heating system with backup systems for safety.
• The power distribution system from the buried power lines run independently to four distribution points. Running backup power from the main station out to these points is not currently supported. See Barcroft Power Distribution diagram for details
• There are certain users of the station who require 3-phase current. This is not currently available.

To carry out this project, WMRS has teamed up with Engineering Professor Scott Samuelsen and students in the Advanced Power and Energy Program(APEP) at UC Irvine. To date the project team has monitored power consumption at Barcroft and Crooked creek, analyzed energy needs with monitoring and simulation, researched energy alternatives, and set up a test bed on the Barcroft Pace Lab roof for assessing the power potential of two types of solar photovoltaic panels. Some of their recommendations are shown in the "Phase 1" WMEP schematic and the "WMEP Electrical and Controls Schematic." The team has also developed a phased strategy for implementing recommendations which allows for incremental improvements depending upon funding and time constraints. In January 2006, the Field Stations and Marine Laboratories (FSML) Improvement Program of the National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded $255,000 to fund the core systems of the WMEP, including a hydronic heating system, backup microturbine generators, and a solar photovoltaic system ( see WMEP FSML web page for highlights of this proposal). Soon, WMRS and APEP will apply to the California Energy Commission for funds to upgrade the environmental energy systems capacity (e.g. wind and solar), and to the Department of Defense for funds to install a monitoring and controls test bed for testing new energy generation technologies and control systems at high elevation.

RESOURCE DIAGRAMS AND DOCUMENTS project detail, schematics, and specifications existing power distribution draft document, initial self-assessment WMEP schematics Barcroft Site plans, floor plans etc. Appliance List (excel file) FSML grant funded in full!
APEP documents and other links powerpoint slide show (30MB download)	The original team...L to R John Smiley, Jim Maclay, Ryan Gaylord, Phil Pister, Scott Samuelsen. Jim Meacham not present.