On January 5, members of Ohio’s Air National Guard's 180th Fighter Wing joined Representative Marcy Kaptur (D., Toledo) to dedicate Phase IV of the unit’s massive, ground-mounted solar array currently rated at 1.2 megawatts.
The solar farm, which will provide 37 percent of the electric needs of the base, is the largest of its kind at any Air National Guard station in the United States, and also the largest installed or projected solar installation in the state. The next largest is Dayton Power and Light’s proposed 1.1-megawatt array near its Yankee substation in Washington Township.
The cost - $11.4 million – is being funded through grants and ARRA (the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009), and is a response by the U.S. Department of Defense and the Ohio Air National Guard to Kaptur’s stated intent of providing American military bases with the kind of domestic energy security they would need in the event of an international incident that curbs oil shipments from the Middle East.
The 180th Fighter Wing base is located in Lucas County near Toledo Express Airport, a passenger and cargo airport located 10 miles west of the city of Toledo. The choice of solar panels was obviated by a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) rule which prohibits wind towers near commercial airports.
Guardsmen have been installing the 16,000 thin-film panels since the fall of 2007. The panels are manufactured by Perrysburg, Ohio-based First Solar, and installed under the guidance of Walbridge, Ohio-based Rudolph/Libbe Inc., a general contractor.
Phases I through III feature panels tilted at a 7-degree angle to optimize the area’s angle of incidence in the summer and its average solar insolation values of 3.0. This value, on a scale of 2.5 to 6.5 within the continental U.S., may not seem very promising, but optimization techniques like tilt and tracking, plus the area’s cooler temperatures (which are better for solar capture) mean that, even in Ohio, solar can deliver a surprising amount of energy.
In this latest phase, panels are tilted to 22 degrees for optimum, all-season solar capture, and the project draws on almost a dozen Ohio vendors, including inverters from Toledo-based startup Nextronex, whose product is displaying record rates of efficiency (especially under cloudy conditions) within the industry.
So far, the base has saved $140,000 in electricity costs, according to Commander Mark Bartman, a colonel within the unit. Bartman also hopes to fill the remainder of the site with more solar panels in the not-too-distant future, as well as create a solar carport and put solar panels on rooftops within the compound.
However, even if the base were to achieve complete energy independence through solar power, it is likely it would remain connected to the area’s electric grid, if only to deliver excess power during periods of peak consumption.
The University of Toledo's Wright Center for Photovoltaics Innovation and Commercialization helped during all phases of the 180th Fighter Wing project by providing research and installation assistance.