Renewable Energy

180th AIR NATIONAL GUARD SOLAR ARRAY | Swanton, OH

Ohio Air National Guard’s 180th Fighter Wing completed the fourth phase of the unit’s massive solar energy field project, the largest of its kind at any Air National Guard base in America.

With the latest addition, guardsmen expect to get 1.2 megawatts – or 37 percent – of the military base’s electrical needs generated by solar power, something that once seemed unfathomable for cloudy northwest Ohio.

CAMP PERRY SOLAR ARRAY | Port Clinton, OH

Camp Perry is a National Guard training facility located on the shore of Lake Erie in Ohio. In addition to its regular mission as a military training base, the facility is also home to the Small Arms Firing School, which provides training and facilities to improve shooters’ abilities.

In 2008, the Ohio Air National Guard implemented a project to provide alternative electric power for the existing facilities. In the third phase of the project, Woolpert — in a joint venture under the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Mentor-Protégé program — helped the facility expand its 106-kilowatt photovoltaic (PV) solar array with an additional 63 kilowatts of capacity.

CAMP PERRY NATIONAL GUARD NANOSOLAR UTILITY PANELS | Port Clinton, OH

Camp Perry Ohio National Guard Base in Port Clinton, Ohio is home to 2,750 of Nanosolar’s utility panels, which are helping to power the recently completed 538-kilowatt solar installation. Romanoff Electric managed the engineering, procurement and construction of the project.

The company’s utility panels were preassembled into cartridges by AP Alternatives in Ridgeville Corners, Ohio, and then delivered and inserted into pre-driven and laser-guided piers at the project site.

“The Nanosolar Utility Panel delivers a low-cost, easy-to-install solar power alternative for America’s military bases,” according to our alternative energy division. Nanosolar’s utility-scale thin film panel design allows us to install equivalent power with fewer panels and less equipment, cabling and people than conventional thin film solar technologies.

TOLEDO READINESS CENTER SOLAR ARRAY | Toledo, OH

The Ohio National Guard continues its efforts to meet mandated energy conservation goals. The bases have pursued alternative energy sources to reduce overall consumption as well as the carbon footprint. They have installed solar panels at several facilities, located at the 180th Fighter Wing in Toledo, 200th RED HORSE Squadron at Camp Perry Joint Training Center (CPJTC) near Port Clinton, the Camp Ravenna Joint Military Training Center (CRJMTC), the Toledo Readiness Center.

TOLEDO ZOO SOLAR WALKWAY | Toledo, OH

A solar array in Northwest Ohio isn’t ideal or traditional; there is cloud cover blocking full exposure to the sun most days. So, Romanoff Electric solved that problem with thin-film solar panels and quiet inverter boxes so as to not disturb the animals.

GENERAL MOTORS SOLAR | Toledo, OH

This project, consisting of a 1.8-megawatt rooftop solar array at its Toledo Transmission plant in Ohio, will generate nearly three percent of the plant’s overall electricity consumption and will be the largest rooftop array in Ohio. The energy produced will be enough to power 200 homes in the United States.

Toledo’s solar array is another example of GM’s leadership in renewable energy use. Having 21,000 solar panels on Toledo’s roof is a great visual representation of our commitment to renewable energy. Industry experts agree. In fact, the Solar Energy Industries Association recently named GM as a “Solar Champion.” The award recognizes companies that significantly impact establishment of a strong solar industry in America.

UTOLEDO HEALTH SCIENCE CAMPUS SOLAR ARRAY | Toledo, OH

A new 2.3-acre, 332-kilowatt solar array on Health Science Campus is expected to save The University of Toledo nearly $30,000 a year, while increasing the amount of renewable energy powering the university.

The projected electrical production over the 25-year life of the system will be more than $700,000, enough to power about 60 homes annually.

Building on its more than 30-year history advancing solar technology to power the world using clean energy, UToledo researchers are pushing the performance of solar cells to levels never before reached.