• 06/08/04 - 140 Systems Installed on Ford Island Navy Residential Housing Project

• 02/27/03 - SunEarth Collectors Installed on Veterans' Administration Hospitals in Texas   

• 02/27/03 - North Boulder Recreation Center Installs 142 SunEarth Collectors   

• 01/27/03 - SunEarth Inc. and Inter-Island Solar Supply join forces on award winning U.S. Army renewable energy project  

• 01/08/03 - SunEarth Collectors Installed on White House

SRCC White Paper on SDHW Output 

SB1345 Solar Grant Program White Paper

Collector Manifold Requirements for Commercial DHW Systems

Collector Manifold Requirements for Pool Systems

Above, A SunEarth mill finish SP-40 installed in line with the roof hip.  Installation of solar panels during construction.

The Ford Island Navy Military Construction Project is located in the East Loch of Pearl Harbor and involved the design and construction of 140 housing units on Ford Island and 30 additional housing units at Radford Terrance. The $35 million contract was awarded to Lend Lease Actus, LLC, with headquarters in Napa, California.

Each of the new homes is equipped with either a one or two panel SunEarth Inc. solar water heating system. The SunEarth collectors and balance of system components were supplied by Inter-Island Solar Supply, SunEarth’s exclusive representative in the Hawaiian Islands and Pacific Basin.

The Hawaiian Electric Company (HECO), which provided incentives for the installations, estimates the benefits of the project to be: annual energy savings of 416 MWh, peak coincident load reduction of 114 kW, and CO₂ reductions of 400 tons annually

For more information please contact Mark Hertel, P.E. at mhertel@solarsupply.com

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Above, Kenneth May of Industrial Solar Technology stands atop the Audey Murphy boiler room.  Below, another view of the hospital's boiler facility.

Photos courtesy of Industrial Solar Technology

A total of 320, model EC-40-1.5 SunEarth flat plate collectors were installed at Veterans' Administration Hospitals in San Antonio and Kerrville, Texas during 2002. Working as a subcontractor to Johnson Controls, Inc. an Energy Service Performance Contractor (ESPC) at these two hospitals, Industrial Solar Technology provided design and start up services, as well as collector mounting hardware and thermal energy storage tanks ranging in volume from 1200 to over 5,000 gallons. All the systems are instrumented and in total have delivered significant reductions in the amount of conventional energy used at the hospitals.   

At the Audey Murphy VA hospital in San Antonio, four different solar systems are installed. The largest system comprises 75 flat plate panels in a closed loop glycol system that preheats domestic hot water for the main hospital building.  Two drainback systems were installed, one of which is used to preheat feedwater for the hospital's main boiler facility.   

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Photo courtesy of Industrial Solar Technology

Industrial Solar Technology recently completed the installation and startup of a solar hot water system comprising 142 SunEarth model EC-40-1.5 collectors at the North Boulder Recreation Center in Boulder, Colorado. The solar system was constructed to heat leisure and lap swimming pools while providing domestic hot water for showers and washing.

The solar collectors cover all the available space on the roofs of the gym and the lap pool for a gross aperture area of 5,795 square feet.    

Energy Savings:

 The solar system replaces the combustion of natural gas. At the current cost of natural gas, the City of Boulder will save from $15,000 - $20,000 per year. The solar system will deliver an estimated 50% of the annual heating load of the swimming pools. The solar system is instrumented with a Btu meter, and measured wintertime performance has been excellent.    

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Photos courtesy of Hawaiian Electric Company

SunEarth Inc. and Inter-Island Solar Supply, our Hawaii distributor, teamed up to provide solar water heating systems for 476 homes at the Helemano Military Reservation located in central Oahu.   Grand Solar and Pacific Mechanical, both of Honolulu, served as the primary installation contractors.  An additional 134 systems were installed by a third contractor.  The entire 610 home job is one of the largest solar water heating projects ever undertaken in the United States.  

SunEarth, Inter-Island and Pacific Mechanical also collaborated on two concurrent Army retrofit projects for 40 additional homes at the Waianae Army Recreation Center as well as a commercial system for the Wheeler Army Airfield Fire Station.

Estimated annual energy savings from the project, which was completed in 2002,  is a healthy $395,000.  Hawaiian Electric Co.’s residential efficient water heating program provided the Army with $610,650 in demand-side management rebates.

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Steven Strong with one of the solar thermal systems installed at the White House in August. The old Executive Office Building is in the background.

Steven Strong was there when the ribbon was cut to unveil a solar hot water system on the East Wing of the White House then occupied by President Jimmy Carter. In late August, he was back at the White House when a small solar PV system and two solar thermal systems quietly began operation after being installed on buildings in the presidential complex in Washington D.C.

Strong, president of Solar Design Associates said his company was retained by the National Park Service early in 2002 to design the project.

The PV system consists of 167 Evergreen Solar 51 W modules using cells manufactured using the company's string ribbon process. Placed on the roof of the main White House grounds maintenance building, the 9 kW PV system directly feeds solar power into the White House grounds' distribution system, providing electricity wherever it is needed.

Two SunEarth solar thermal systems were also installed, one to heat the pool and spa and one to provide domestic hot water.

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