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PWD Chinhae Finds Energy Solutions in the Sun

Navy NewsStand

Story Number: NNS080125-11
Release Date: 1/25/2008 3:20:00 PM

By Christine Lohr and Yasuko Nakamura, Naval Facilities Engineering Command Far East Public Affairs

CHINHAE, South Korea (NNS) -- The Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC) Far East's Public Works Department (PWD) in Chinhae, Korea has initiated solutions to the base's energy needs by looking to the sun.

"In the past 12 months, we completed five solar projects for Commander, Fleet Activities Chinhae (CFAC) that are expected to save money and lessen greenhouse gas emissions," said Lt. Troy Brown, Public Works Officer, Chinhae.

Two of the most recently completed were a $68,000 project to repair the roof and install a solar powered water heater in the base laundry facility, and a $90,000 project to install solar powered security lighting on the base.

The projects began after first identifying large sources of energy consumption around the base. And as most electrical consumers know, it takes a lot of energy to keep hot water in a tank 24 hours a day. So when the roof of the base laundry facility needed repairs, a plan was put into place to benefit from the sun by using solar energy to heat the facility's water supply. The project also called for a more efficient heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system, and incorporating better insulation throughout the facility.

This green construction project completed in December will help reduce the laundry's total energy consumption by as much as 40 percent, and at the same time, reduce CFAC's diesel fuel transport and consumption.

"CFAC's goal is to utilize as much renewable energy as possible with the shortest pay back period," said Brown. "Further use of renewable energy will also eliminate potential pollution into the environment."

Another energy consumption project identified by PWD Chinhae was the need to reduce the cost of street lighting. Street lighting is a larger energy consumer than many of us realize. A small town of 400 can spend as much as $1,500 a month to light a few streets. In an effort to conserve energy and save on scarce resources, some places have added timers to shut down lighting in the middle of the night.

CFAC already added selective timers to some of their lights, but because of security, lighting along the fence line of any base must always be available. And with new developments in solar lighting taking hold, PWD Chinhae found they could incorporate innovative solar solutions alongside the older lights.

Solar lighting has become more feasible recently, as built-in battery systems now hold a reservoir of energy during grey days. The lighting poles installed at Chinhae are able to do just that, going 48 hours on stored energy. Previously, lighting from solar collection either wasn't intense enough for street lighting, or they used too many watts to produce the requisite lighting intensity, and quickly drained the battery's reservoir of stored energy.

That problem has been solved with new filaments that are able to deliver a finer, more penetrable light that uses less wattage. Low cost, high efficiency bulbs are added to the mix so that a solar street light today is able to provide the same lighting spread and can suitably illuminate an area on 100 lux (10 candles brightness).

The $90,000 lighting project resulted in ten new solar light poles being installed in October, but analysis of the energy savings that the new poles will generate will take a while longer. "We won't be able to analyze the accurate cost savings for at least a year," said Soon No, Deputy Public Works Officer, PWD Chihae.

PWD Chinhae will be watching their energy meters with interest to see what the actual energy savings will be for the two projects. However, the new lighting and the solar panels on the laundry facility should definitely lessen energy consumption, and with it a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, but only the sun will reveal the extent of exactly how much energy will be saved in the future, and how much better off planet Earth will be because of it.