Fire Station No. 4 goes partially solar in new energy project
Posted on Thursday, March 22, 2007
When the firemen at Fayetteville’s Station No. 4 turn on their hot water faucets later this year, they could be helping Arkansas families decide if solar water heating makes sense for them.
The city of Fayetteville received a $ 10, 700 grant from the Arkansas Energy Office for the construction of a solar water heating unit to augment the existing heating unit in station four.
“ The idea is that the hot water that has been introduced (into the pipes ) will keep the water heater from switching on and thereby save electricity, ” said Coy Hurd, building services director for the city.
Hurd said he believed that over time the energy savings will more than compensate for the original outlay of funds.
One of the grant’s objectives is to determine how much the solar-powered system will reduce the need for conventional water heating.
“ This is an opportunity to try and find out how well these systems perform and how cost effective they are, ” said Chris Benson, director of the energy office.
“ What we want to do is have some good, irrefutable, right-here-in-Arkansas measurements, ” said Bill Ball of Little Rock, a consultant on renewable energy. Ball helped the city apply for the grant.
He said the system will measure units of heat, BTUs, from the solar energy and auxiliary heat from the backup system. The BTU measurements can then be converted into kilowatt hours of electricity for comparisons.
Because the system will heat most of the water used by the firemen, the city should save electricity, Hurd and Ball said.
The question is how much.
“ Solar domestic hot water systems, we think, are cost effective to use, but we have to prove that, ” Benson said. “ We’d like to, if people call our office, be able to say, ‘ Yeah. This is a slam dunk and you ought to go for it. ’ But at this point, we’re not absolutely sure, so we want to get some more experience. ”
For Benson, a good percentage on a year-round usage would be 60 percent of the fire station’s water being heated through the solar system.
Ball believes the percentage could be higher.
“ We wanted to emulate as closely as we could the load (hot water use ) of a family, ” he said. “ At the fire station, they cook, they shower. They’re probably actually going to use a little more hot water (than a family ), but essentially, from an economic and engineering feasibility point of view, in Arkansas we can usually make 70-80 percent of the load of solar hot water. ”
Benson said the advantage of the fire station testing the solar water heating system is the amount of hot water used in a “ pretty consistent” pattern year-round. Also, utility costs for the hot water represent “ a healthy percentage” of the operating costs for the building.
The station at 3385 Plainview Ave. has a rotating crew of up to seven firefighters on each shift, Hurd said. It has 5, 500 square feet and was constructed in 1999.
“ A lot of folks over there taking showers, living there, cooking there, washing dishes. It takes a lot of water, ” he said.
The grant to Fayetteville will be used to purchase and install two collectors, a storage tank, a tankless water heater unit and the associated structures and meters.
In addition to building the solar unit, the city will change from a tank water heater, the kind people are familiar with in their homes, to a tankless water heater.
“ Instead of it being in a tank, the water is heated as it goes through this unit — instantaneously heated, ” said Hurd. “ In other words, instead of needing to keep a 60-gallon tank hot 24 hours a day, it will be an on-demand type of water heater. “ As the new water comes into the system, it goes through our new water heater and heats up. Pretty cool. ” Benson said the energy office wants to do more than measure the performance of the system and gather data. Its officials also want to use the project to provide situations for plumbers and others in the construction industries to learn about installing the solar power systems and maintaining them.
“ It’s a technology that has a future in Arkansas, ” Benson said. “ We’re hoping that people will take advantage of it. ”
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