Publications

This paper documents the history of photovoltaic use within the Department of Defense leading up to the installation of 2.1 MW of photovoltaics underway today. This history describes the evolution of the Department of Defense`s Tri-Service Photovoltaic Review Committee and the committee`s strategic plan to realize photovoltaic`s fall potential through outreach, conditioning of the federal procurement system, and specific project development. The Photovoltaic Review Committee estimates photovoltaic`s potential at nearly 4,000 MW, of which about 700 MW are considered to be cost-effective at today`s prices. The paper describes photovoltaic`s potential within the Department of Defense, the status and features of the 2.1 MW worth of photovoltaic systems under installation, and how these systems are selected and implemented. The paper also documents support provided to the Department of Defense by the Department of Energy dating back to the late 70s.

The Department of Defense (DoD) operates hundreds of test, evaluation, and training facilities across the US and abroad. Due to the nature of their missions, these facilities are often remote and isolated from the utility grid. The preferred choice for power at these facilities has historically been manned diesel generators. The DoD Photovoltaic Review Committee, estimates that on the order of 350 million gallons of diesel fuel is burned each year to generate the 2000 GWh of electricity required to operate these remote military facilities. Other federal agencies, including the National Park Service and the USDA Forest Service use diesel generators for remote power needs as well. The generation of power diesel generators is both expensive and detrimental to the environment. The augmentation of power from diesel generators with power processing and battery energy storage enhances the efficiency and utilization of the generator resulting in lower fuel consumption and lower generator run- time in proportion to the amount of renewables added. The hybrid technology can both reduce the cost of power and reduce environmental degradation at remote DoD facilities. This paper describes the expected performance and economics of photovoltaic/diesel hybrid systems. Capabilities and status of systems now being installed at DoD facilities are presented along with financing mechanisms available within DoD.

Research has shown that long-term hourly insolation data are necessary to properly size stand-alone photovoltaic systems. Even if these data are available, their direct use requires extensive computing capabilities and is not practical on a routine basis. This paper describes a three-step model that generates realistic long-term hourly insolations from average monthly insolations. The model executes rapidly on a personal computer and generates the hourly data needed to properly size stand-alone systems. The approach used to develop this model was unique in that system performance predictions rather than statistical properties were used to verify that the synthetic data were representative of actual data. Results of verification tests show that array sizes resulting from the synthetic data are within 6% of the array sizes resulting from actual hourly data for any system with at least two days of energy storage. 5 figs., 4 tabs.