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Stories from the
Field
LT Joel Michalski
NOAA Station Chief
American Samoa
I'd like to report on the completion of a large 6 kW solar
photovoltaic array which we rehabilitated and began using
at the Climate Monitoring & Diagnostics Laboratory Baseline
Observatory in American Samoa. Since May, the solar-generated
electricity has provided up to 30 percent of the daytime
power required at our observatory.
The native name for the site where our observatory is located
is Matatula Point. This is translated as "where the wind
blows" which is very fitting given that we measure atmospheric
constituents and our most accurate results are when the
wind blows from a specific clean air sector. In other words,
we take our best measurements when the wind blows.
The project began more than a year ago when I first arrived
at the observatory. I was approached by several people on
the island who were interested in the large solar array
attached to our building. This array, originally designed
to charge a large battery bank, had been damaged. It had
sat dormant for almost 10 years.
One interested person, Jeff Shively, working with the US
Department of Energy, drafted a grant request which was
eventually awarded. The grant stipulated that NOAA, the
Territorial Energy Office of American Samoa, and American
Samoa Community College would combine money and labor to
rehabilitate the array. The completed project would supply
renewable, solar electric energy to the NOAA Observatory
and act as a hands-on laboratory for community college math
and science students.
Our work began in earnest this past February when we designed
and built a new observatory carport onto which the solar
panels would be mounted. This was required because the panels,
mounted on an old, rotting, wooden rack system, would likely
be damaged during the next hurricane. In April, the solar
array was refurbished, rewired and reinstalled onto the
new carport. We connected the panels to modern DC/AC electronic
inverters and supplied the solar power directly into the
observatory's main breaker panel.
On April 30 the project was complete, the switches thrown
and "green" power began to effectively supplement the observatory
electricity demand. As of this writing, the system is working
great.
This entire project required 650 worker hours and just over
$11,000. We had lots of help from the Territorial Energy
Office and the American Samoa Community College. In all,
NOAA contributed half the labor and $6,500, a small investment
considering the value of the solar panels at about $40,000
and the approximately $1,200 in power costs saved each year.
The project complements the science conducted at the observatory.
Operated by NOAA's Climate Monitoring and Diagnostics Laboratory
in Boulder, Colorado, the observatory maintains monitoring
programs in greenhouse and other trace gases, atmospheric
aerosals and solar radiation variability. It was built in
1973 and began operations two years later. Our observatory
is one of four NOAA-operated monitoring systems around the
world. The three others are in Hawaii, Alaska and Antarctica.
The crew who helped harness the sun.
From NOAA, Malcolm Gaylord (bottom right);
Lafaele Silao (not shown) and
Joel Michaleski (top right, wearing the frond hat).
Others are community college students
and Territorial Energy Office staff.
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