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Solar power keeps runway windsock illuminated
For obvious reasons, no airport wants utility poles near its runways. And the cost of installing underground electrical lines is roughly $10 per foot.
At the Washington County Airport, they've come up with a solution: illuminating a windsock with a solar-powered beacon.
Ken Krupa, airport manager, showed off the $20,000 project Monday so federal and state taxpayers know what they've gotten for their grant money.
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"Nobody was familiar with this stuff around here among the electrical contractor guys," Krupa said. "It is a new technology for Western Pennsylvania."
An 800-foot underground electrical utility line from the terminal was going to have to be replaced, so the county applied for and was awarded the grant three years ago.
Four modules comprise a solar panel that powers four batteries, and the batteries' direct current is converted to alternating current to power the wind sock beacon.
"At night it's beautiful," said Mark Wiener, senior account executive for Ameresco solar power, Monday afternoon. "This doesn't do it justice,"
The solar project began operating about a month ago, and Krupa has been thrilled to see the panel charging its batteries even in miserable weather. He'd like to see a meter installed in the terminal to highlight the project so visitors to the airport, site of 35,000 landings and takeoffs a year, would be aware of it.
Even without a display, word about the project has gotten out.
Wiener said officials at Fort Knox, Ky., saw information on his company's Web site about the Washington County Airport project and are interested in having similar equipment installed there. Heretofore, the airport's biggest claim to fame was that a scene from the 1991 release "The Silence of the Lambs" was filmed there. The airport substituted for a setting in rural Kentucky.
The solar-powered beacon was part of a $500,000 project at the airport, which included a precision-approved path indicator lighting system and the relocation of a utility vault.
The contractor for the project, designed by Michael Baker Jr. Corp. engineers, was Schultheis Electric of Latrobe, Westmoreland County.
20,000 divided by 10 : 11/10/2009
2000 feet which is a bit more than a 1/3 mile. Add utility costs, equipment and the trade off is really thin. Solar companies need to do something to make these types of purchases more cost effective realtime not amortized. Personally I am all for energy alternatives but seems to me the pricing I am seeing is built around the "we are green" model and are artificially high. Contractors, developers, manufacturers are all trying to mark up the idea of being energy conscious and simply smarter.
