September 30, Everyone, New Alternative Energy and Sustainable Systems Technology Degree

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September 30, 2011 Everyone, New Alternative Energy and Sustainable Systems Technology Degree The semester is almost half done and courses are progressing nicely.

1 September 30, 2011 Everyone, New Alternative Energy and Sustainable Systems Technology Degree The semester is almost half done and courses are progressing nicely. The last 22 Marcraft LEED and Biofuel trainers should come in the second week of October. Those trainers will be used for spring semester courses. Marcraft Solar PV, Residential Energy Auditing, and Biofuel tabletop trainers will complete the six technology areas in which students will be able to study and perform hands-on work in the AE curriculum. ET-102 has now been designated solely as the Green room where all AE classes and labs will be taught. Some additional electrical outlet work needs to be done before spring semester starts as we do not now have enough outlet capacity to power the four different trainers used for that semester. More news later as it develops. Photos are shown below where students are working on Marcraft wind power trainers in ALT-130, the Wind Power course sections that I am teaching this semester. A shot of students crimping connectors on the Marcraft wind turbine trainers.

2 Photo showing other students cutting and applying connectors on the 400 watt turbine trainers.

Students in the night section of ALT-130 mount one of two wind turbines on the Marcraft tabletop trainer. Main Green Link on Owens Website No changes here.

3 Students in the night section of ALT-130 mount one of two wind turbines on the Marcraft tabletop trainer. Main Green Link on Owens Website No changes here. The Project Green link that was directed from the Owens main website banner picture is now on the AE degree home page (thanks to Gary Corrigan and Michelle Dockins) as well as in the Hot Links page.

4 Soon we will have two new live camera links showing the large 34 kw PV array in Toledo, and the turbine/pv array in Findlay. Those links will have descriptive text as well as real-time read outs of production data. Due to IT having an immense amount of work on the Data Center and the campuse s IT infrastructure, those new links above will have to take a back seat for a short time. Perfectly understandable. I ll keep you all posted as they develop in the future. So now, from the Owens home page, click on the large array picture that periodically cycles through at the top of the page. From there, you ll be taken to the new AE degree home page. The Project Green link is also on this page now, as well as in Hot Links. However, if you want to go directly to the Project Green home page, use the link below: Enjoy and explore the site: 50 kw Entegrity Wind Turbine - Toledo Campus Production for August was low... as expected. The turbine generated 1,243 out of a predicted 1,000 kwh s, with average wind speeds for July of 7.1 mph. These figures are to be expected during the hot summer doldrums and we are matching the predicted curves pretty well.

As shown below, the last two months, we have matched the 30-year average for wind speed for our locale. It will be interesting to see what happens the next few months heading into fall and winter!

5 As shown below, the last two months, we have matched the 30-year average for wind speed for our locale. It will be interesting to see what happens the next few months heading into fall and winter! Our Hawkeye dashboard issues continue to be up and down because of all the IT work that s been going on. Most of the time, we are maintaining good connectivity to the turbine and with the data reporting system. So the dashboard of real-time data continues to be up and running now, but there may be glitches from time to time. And as mentioned above, you can now see this link displayed on the main Project Green site. wind turbine live webcam and wind speed data. 2.4 kw Skystream Wind Turbine - Toledo Campus The turbine performed poorly in August, with only 24 kwh s, but then neither did the Findlay turbine (below), as the combined graph shows on the next page. Both were less than in July, but Findlay s drop was negligible. Summer months kill wind turbine production. (You can see this turbine in the foreground of the above live camera view of the large 50 kw turbine.) We hope to have a separate link to show more text and information on the smaller Skystream. Depends if we can get som IT help from the manufacturer (Southwest Windpower). I ll keep you posted. 2.4 kw Skystream Wind Turbine - Findlay Campus As mentioned above, this turbine s production was virtually the same as July, with only 54 kwh s for August. Not spectacular by any means.

As mentioned earlier above, we will have a live camera image of both the Findlay Skystream and PV array from a dome camera when the workload of IT lightens up.

We are working with IT, T & C Communications, and the green link committee to get this information ported to the web and accessible as soon as we can. Please be patient. It will take a while. 1.

6 As mentioned earlier above, we will have a live camera image of both the Findlay Skystream and PV array from a dome camera when the workload of IT lightens up. The priority to get this done has to take a back seat, however, to all the current IT work that is being accomplished. We are working with IT, T & C Communications, and the green link committee to get this information ported to the web and accessible as soon as we can. Please be patient. It will take a while. 1.7 kw Photovoltaic Solar Array - Findlay Campus The array continues to perform very well, as the graph below shows with 282 kwh s during August! As I mentioned in previous reports, it s so very clear how the wind and solar output reverse themselves when summer approaches. They will again reverse sometime in September/October, so be on the lookout!

7 More good news to report! As of September 10, 2011, this 1.7 kw array is registered as an Ohio Renewable Energy Resouce Generating Facility. After a short two week process of GATS registration to certify the kwh readings, we will now be able to sell the Solar Renewable Energy Credits from this array through the Flett Exchange in New Jersey! More news as this info develops. We now have a public URL available to see the real-time production data from each panel in the array. It's pretty impressive! With the advent of the new Owen s Project Green link as mentioned above, you can now see this link displayed on the main Project Green site. Check on this link there: PV array energy data report. 34 kw Photovoltaic Solar Array - Toledo Campus This array is still continues to perform astoundingly well and we continue to feed power to the ET building! Predicted kwh production for August was 4,643 kwh s. The array produced 5,482 kwh s, an 18% increase! That s the equivalent monthly electrical usage of 5 average homes again! The graph below tells the story: We should continue to see high outputs for the rest of the summer. Well, also good news on the hard meter for this array. After the third meter failed, I ordered a meter from a different manufacturer, E-Mon D-Mon, like we have on the 50 kw Entegrity turbine. That meter was installed September 14 th, and is running just fine! Info from that meter was forwarded to the Ohio PUCO through the Flett Exchange and now we wait for certification in about two months. If all goes well, we should be certified all the way back to mid April 2011 because we can prove we have an internet SCADA system data to prove production data for each month since then. That will allow us to sell solar RECs back to April. At present prices, those RECS are worth about $9,600!

8 Hopefully, very soon, you ll be able to see a real-time readout of the production data as soon as the internet monitoring system is fully configured and a link established on the Project Green site. Again, that has to take a lower priority with all the work IT has to do. I ll keep you posted. We will also be having a live camera view along with the internet monitoring system. We still have some camera issues to work out, but hopefully within a month, perhaps we can get all this done. I m optimistic. Until we can get an image to the web, here is a live camera view link (from the old camera) to both the existing small PV array in the turnaround area of ET as well as the large array area pictured above: (the focus is as good as it can be for now.) Next month I hopw to have contributions of both wind and solar systems to the ET building s electrical load. There have been some issues with the digital data being reported, but those should be worked out and I will be able to report the latest contribution for the last two months of August and September kw Photovoltaic Solar Array - Toledo Campus No changes here. I will be sending the final electrical inspection sheet that s been forwarded to me to FE for the interconnection agreement. Once they approve the agreement, we will have all the interconnection agreements in place for all of our AE installations on both campuses. (The new dome camera will show this array as well as the new 34 kw PV array.) As mentioned, as soon as we can get an image from the new camera into a link, we will provide it. It just has to take a back seat to all the IT work going on. It will eventually happen. Solar Thermal Panel System - Toledo Campus No changes here. The panel system continues to perform well. We re getting a LOT of sunshine these days! Even in NW Ohio, you could easily get over 80% of all your hot water from a solar thermal hot water heater. And with all the incentives and tax credits, your cost could be less than $1000! Free hot water for life... something to think about. More good news! We finally have a solution to the hot water issue in ET! We now have hot water at all the fixtures in a relatively short time. Thanks to all that made that possible. The single Heliotrope solar thermal panel continues to provide hot water for the Engineering building's bathrooms. The 4 ft x 6 ft panel is mounted on a slab just outside the atrium and office area and can easily be seen from the atrium. Antifreeze is circulated through the panel to collect the sun's rays and then this heat is transferred to a storage tank in the utility room. The future plan is to add panels from different manufacturers and see how production changes. December and January are the worst months for solar insolation, but even some thermal energy is collected on cloudy days. All the above will be used for training purposes by students in the Alternate Energy and Sustainable Systems technology, a new two-year program under Design Technologies, and by Workforce and Community Training. Once all systems are running, Owens will have the most diverse and high-tech technologies of any school in the state. As always, stay tuned for more developments! Any questions, comments, or clarifications, call or . Thanks,

9 Ralph Semrock Associate Professor, Design Technologies Owens Community College PO Box 10,000, Oregon Rd. Toledo, OH Office: Cell:

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