Providing Power with Renewable Energy

Alicia Massara, Chad Barrick, Charles Williams,

Joseph Rubaker, Sabrina Kosnik, and

Sarah Ingerick

Objectives

The objectives of the renewable energy kit for Gan-

non’s maintenance building is threefold:

Reduce their electricity bill

Show case Gannon’s engineering programs with stu-

dent design/run renewable energy project on one of the

focus points on campus

Provide an on-going platform for students’ engagement

and undergraduate research activities

Location

The site for our renewable energy kit is on the roof of

the maintenance building located on 314 Sassafras

Street on campus.

The maintenance department will be able to utilize the

electrical energy collected from both the solar panels and

the wind turbine. They will be able to:

Charge the batteries of their handheld

tools

Charge the rechargeable battery for

their electric golf cart

Station Overview

1.4kW solar-wind hybrid renewable energy station sys-

tem using solar and wind power.

The proposed hybrid renewable system consists of 1

kW solar panels (10*100W) and a 400W small wind tur-

bine.

The reason for choosing this hybrid style is, on aver-

age, there are 157 sunny days per year in Erie and the

city is also well know for being very windy

The two will complement each other nicely, because

on very sunny days it is often not windy and vice ver-

sa.

The graph below shows the average wind speeds in

Erie throughout the year (2016-2017)

As seen in the graph above, wind speeds average

around 10 mph with gusts up to 40 mph.

Why the Maintenance Building?

Showcases students’ engineering projects

The scale of the project is just big enough to cover

noticeable percentage of maintenance department’s

electricity bill

Manageable size of the project opens multiple future

projects for undergraduate students to get involved

It is a good place to promote renewable energy at

Gannon

Installation

The solar panels have already been installed on the

roof of the building

Budget

Budget Justification

The total estimated cost for installing the 1.4kW hybrid

renewable energy power system is around $3,000

Saving $300 a year means that after 10 years, this

station would be producing “free” energy for the knight

club; project evolution to a new location makes this

budget justification less clear

Funding

$1,500 from NSF S-STEM grant covers the main cost

of purchasing the system package.

$50 from Ms. Gretchen Fairley

$1,500 from SGA (Student Government Association)

covers the remaining purchases (i.e. turbine mount,

electrical wiring)

Future Educational Opportunities

While becoming a new focal point to campus, it can al-

so serve as a great starting point for multiple projects

for Engineering and Computer Science, such as:

Automatic solar tracking system: future students could

design a system that would be able to rotate and posi-

tion the solar panels to track the sun to produce the

most energy

A real-time monitoring system: students could design a

system that would be able to measure how much elec-

tricity the system is producing as well as if any mainte-

nance is needed

With the help of the maintenance crew, the mainte-

nance building can be utilized and turned into a real-life

platform for some very intriguing projects in these fields.

https://cleantechnica.com/2013/08/12/intermittency-of-wind-and-solar-is-it-only-intermittently-a-problem/

Item name Quan-

tity

Brief specs

Wind turbine generator 1 Rated power 400W, rotor diameter

1.2 meter

Turbine hybrid controller 1 Can connect to solar panel & wind

generator, 12/24V DC

Poly solar panel 10 100W each, 26.16*39.3*1.37 in

Pure sine wave inverter 1 1500W, 110/220V AC

Item Vendor cost funding source Paid

Solar-wind hybrid system package

Eco-worthy $1,505 NSF S-STEM grant yes

Storage batteries Trojan $700 Solar grant, SGA yes

Roof mount and extra wiring $500

Gannon physical plan-ning donation of ma-terials yes

shipping/handling $300

total $3,005