Youngstown Steel Heritage Museum on Solar Power

Rick Rowlands

I am the curator/executive director/founder/chief engineer of an industrial museum in Youngstown, OH called the Youngstown Steel Heritage Museum, and earlier this year we decided to install an off grid solar generation system to power all of our single phase needs. A friend and museum supporter, James Jarvis from APRS World, LLC http://www.aprsworld.com/ volunteered to install a system for us.

Back in June Jim drove all the way out from Minnesota with a truck full of components, and by the end of the day we had a 4,000 watt system in place and running. We have a diesel locomotive on display at the museum and I wanted to install the batteries and inverter in it, so that is what we did.

Jim installed a Magnum MS4024PAE inverter/charger and Mini Magnum Panel MMP250-30D, four Trojan 8D-AGM 230AH batteries and five 200watt solar panels with a Midnite Classic charge controller. From the locomotive the 120VAC runs to the main museum building in buried conduit. The panels are located next to the locomotive on top of a steel shed and face the south at a 30 degree angle.

I am very well pleased with the quality of Jim's work and his attention to detail. He has made my introduction into solar a pleasant experience. I have not had any issues with the system aside from the obvious fact that I don't have enough storage capacity nor enough generation capacity. Those limitations will be remedied as soon as I raise some more money for upgrades.

Not only does this system help our perpetually cash strapped museum to save money on electric bills, it is a great educational tool for our visitors. Just about everyone who visits and sees our system comments on how "forward thinking" we are for installing it, and many have come away with a better understanding of the benefits and limitations of solar power. I particularly enjoy showing how the solar harvest changes every time a cloud floats by temporarily blocking the sun.

Since our museum is open during the days and mostly in half of the year when the sun comes out in Ohio, solar is an excellent fit for us. For museum lighting I am currently using 65 watt CFLs in porcelain enamel industrial light fixtures, and with all of them on it is a 650 watt load. However, as we continue to install translucent panels under the eaves on both the south and north walls of the building we can cut down on the number of CFLs that have to run on a typical day. I am looking into changing them out with LEDs if I find some that have a comparable light output and that will work in our fixtures.

The museum also has several pieces of steel industry equipment that will be operational, and that power will be provided by a diesel genset. Even with the fuel and maintenance costs for the genset it is still cheaper than trying to purchase 3 phase from First Energy, especially with the demand charges.

Photowhit

Re: Youngstown Steel Heritage Museum on Solar Power

A little late to say it, but you won't save money with off grid solar, unless your grid electric is very expensive. You might have with a grid tied system, though perhaps net metering isn't available for commercial customers?

Rick Rowlands

Re: Youngstown Steel Heritage Museum on Solar Power

When you get a grant that pays for the solar installation, and you are not paying $40 to $50 month in electric bills, its hard to not save money. For a commercial service we would also be paying demand and there would be the temptation to use more power if there are no limitations as to availability. Having a finite supply is a helluva good way of promoting conservation. And its not all about money either. We are an educational facility, and this is one of our educational exhibits.

In case any of you were wondering what is inside the buildings, the large building houses a 260 ton, 4,000 HP stationary steam engine that powered a rolling mill in one of Youngstown's steel mills. It is known as the Tod Engine and turned 100 this year.

Attachment not found.

In the smaller building is our latest addition, a 2000KW Westinghouse rotary converter that was originally used to make 600 VDC for the Pittsburgh Railways trolley system. A combination of a synchronous motor, DC generator and induction motor all in one unit, it was state of the art technology for converting polyphase AC into DC before solid state inverters were invented. Probably less than a dozen rotary converters still exist, out of perhaps thousands that had been built by both Westinghouse and GE.

Attachment not found.Attachment not found.

Photowhit

Re: Youngstown Steel Heritage Museum on Solar Power

Rick Rowlands wrote: »

When you get a grant that pays for the solar installation, and you are not paying $40 to $50 month in electric bills, its hard to not save money.

Wow! quick calculations would suggest a 1000 watt array should be able to provide around 3 kwh's of electric a day(assuming less stored energy and a lot of direct use) 3 x 30 days=90 kwhs, so your paying 50 cents a kwh for electric? or perhaps using less due to limitations. The problem with an off grid system is you need to have waste or you'll be undercharging the batteries and aging them prematurely. Grid tied systems might provide 3 times the amount of usable electric, since your not trying to store the energy, and there need not be any waste.

Rick Rowlands

Re: Youngstown Steel Heritage Museum on Solar Power

Then I have to come up with $6,000 to tie the property to the grid!

BB.

Re: Youngstown Steel Heritage Museum on Solar Power

In general, for an off grid system that is running well... The batteries may last you around 5-7 years for your good quality AGM batteries and ~10+ years life for the electronics (charge controller, AC inverter; possibly with repairs ~5 years in).

Most of the components if kept dry and cool (heat is the enemy of electronics and batteries)--They will tick along pretty well.

For batteries, they are the one thing that is easy to kill... I would suggest you get a Battery Monitor. Something like the Trimetric or Victron Battery Monitor would be a good addition. Sealed batteries like your AGM, you cannot monitor the specific gravity and state of charge of the batteries directly. A properly configured Battery Monitor will make it much easier to be sure you don't over do the battery bank discharge (take a battery bank below ~50% discharge, will age them quicker; taking below 20% state of charge can kill them directly). Also, lead acid batteries don't like to sit around at less than 75% state of charge very long or they will sulfate.

Depending on how much foot traffic you get and amount of ambient lighting... Eventually you might want to replace the CFLs with LEDs and add motion detectors (with ambient lighting sensors)--Constant drain (8 hours per day) of even relatively small loads are killers for off grid power systems:

• 1,500 Watt microwave * 0.5 hours per day = 750 Watt*Hours per day
• 13 Watt CFLs * 10 qty * 10 hours per day = 1,300 Watt*Hours per day

So, conserving where you can and monitoring the state of charge of your AGM battery bank will help keep your costs low (i.e., batteries last 5-7 years instead of being killed in 2 years).

Do you have a generator of some sort to power your loads during bad weather? An old Lister type diesel + generator head might also make and interesting display. A hit/miss motor may be interesting too (if you can round one of those up)--But don't know how badly they smoke (in California, you probably could not even legally run such a motor due to pollution laws).

Neat museum. Hard not to get a hitch in my heart to look at our history of the early industrial development. Driving manufacturing/heavy industry from the US has weakened us terribly and just transferred jobs and pollution overseas instead of truly cleaning up our environment and giving good jobs here.

-Bill

Cariboocoot

Re: Youngstown Steel Heritage Museum on Solar Power

Pity they didn't give you a grant for connecting up to the grid. Long-term it would be much cheaper and certainly easier to maintain.

Rick Rowlands

Re: Youngstown Steel Heritage Museum on Solar Power

One of the reasons for being a stand alone system is the educational aspect. It has been a great educational tool and many visitors have come away with a better understanding of solar power after seeing our installation. Since we are an educational facility the added cost of this system is balanced by the teaching aspect.

The Magnum inverter has a feature that cuts itself off when the batteries reach a certain state of discharge and I think its currently set at 50%.

niel

Re: Youngstown Steel Heritage Museum on Solar Power

interesting. i would definitely advise more in pv as i know how cloudy it gets in the tristate area, especially in the winter. bill's advice of monitoring is still a good idea as you don't want the power to go out hours before you wish it to and it would help in your conservation thinking with info of what you're up against.

do know you've hit on some common points to me in many respects. look for my pm.