Solar energy upgrade boosts efficiency

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Mike Dietrich installs a mount for solar panels at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., June 6, 2012. The solar panels are scheduled to be completed within the next two weeks. Dietrich is an electric wireman apprentice. (U.S. Air Force photo/Airman 1st Class Jason Couillard)
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Solar energy upgrade boosts efficiency

Posted 6/8/2012

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by Senior Airman Jack Sanders
99th Air Base Wing Public Affairs

6/8/2012 - NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, Nev. (AFNS) -- The 99th Air Base Wing headquarters building here is adding solar panels in an effort to make the building more energy efficient.

Nellis Air Force Base is in the process of starting and completing eight separate projects to make Nellis AFB, Creech AFB and the Nevada Test and Training Range more energy efficient.

"A while back, a major command-wide energy audit came to Nellis," said Lynn Haarklau, the 99th Civil Engineer Squadron chief of asset options. "They decided that one option to increase energy efficiency use on base was to install solar panel arrays on key buildings."

Beginning in 2003, Nellis AFB has had to reduce its energy consumption by three percent annually to meet Air Force policy targets, officials said. If the base continues its trend of meeting this goal, the base will reach the ultimate goal of cumulatively reducing energy use by 30 percent as of fiscal year 2015.

"We're given a requirement by the Air Force to put a solar system on the roof of a building," said John Sowell, a project manager for J.C. Palomar, the contractor handling the installation of the system. "They have a concept of what they want to do and we'll take that concept and put it into reality by doing a design of how many watts of power we can produce for the resources we have."

The system installation should take approximately three weeks, after which the energy collected through them will be redirected into the building.

"We just installed the inverters, which is what changes the energy harnessed from the panels into useable energy and feeds that energy into the building," Sowell said. "We'll start actually putting up the panels after that."

Once the system is operational it will begin feeding up to 17 kilowatts of energy into the building.

"The energy from the panels on the headquarters building will not only be able to power most, if not all of that building's energy needs, but on days where power requirements for the building may be lower than what the solar panels put out, that energy will be redirected to other locations where it will be used," Sowell said. "So, this project could potentially add power to this building and others as well."

The solar panel project completion will set the way for the other eight energy efficiency projects to be completed, Sowell said.