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Bergey Windpower Case Study Chandalar Lake, Alaska |
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FAA Navigational Beacon |
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The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) operates an aircraft navigation
beacon at Chandalar Lake in the Brooks Range of northeast Alaska. The site is
very remote and is accessible only by air. Previously, the site was
powered by diesel generators, with all of the fuel having to be flown in.
Early in 1999 the FAA began looking into alternatives to both flying fuel in and
upgrading their diesel generation facilities to new stricter
environmental standards. BWC assisted the FAA and their consulting firms
in looking at various system alternatives ranging from 20-100% renewables
penetration.
After deciding on an all-renewables system in the late spring, the FAA was allowed to "sole source" the equipment from BWC in order to use the short Alaskan construction season in the summer. The system consists of two Bergey 7.5 kW turbines on 30 m (100 ft) guyed-lattice towers, a 5 kW solar array, a 48 VDC sealed battery bank, switchgear, and two Trace sine wave inverters. The logistics for the project, which were handled by the FAA's construction contractor Montgomery-Watson, were quite difficult. For example, the permafrost and site conditions precluded on-site concrete pouring so the wind turbine tower anchor blocks had to be pre-cast in Anchorage and flown via C-130 to Chandalar Lake. BWC assisted Montgomery-Watson with the equipment installation and commissioning in August 1999. The FAA considers Chandalar Lake a pilot project and hopes to replicate it at other off-grid FAA facilities in the coming years. They have already purchased two additional smaller systems for other Alaskan sites. Partial funding for the project was provided by the Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP), which is administered by US-DOE |
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