Appledore Island solar array expanding for UNH-led ocean cable project
KITTERY, Maine — A 30-kilowatt solar array will be installed on Appledore Island to benefit a cabled acoustic array project conducted by the University of New Hampshire on the Isles of Shoals’ largest island.
The Shoals Marine Laboratory, founded in 1966, was approved by the Kittery Planning Board last week to install a 2,500-square-foot extension to the existing solar array on the island. The structure will be expanded to include six new arrays, with 14 solar panels on each, to support the university project without needing to utilize the island’s diesel power supply.
In December, the town Planning Board approved an application from the university’s Center for Acoustics Research and Education to install a utility subsea telecommunications cable on Appledore Island to send data from offshore acoustic sensors. The sensors are used to collect data to monitor fisheries and the climate of the area, according to past project records.
Shoals Marine Laboratory facilities director Ross Hansen told the Planning Board the cable was expected to be installed in March, though it has been pushed off until October. Three kilowatts of the 30-kilowatt solar array expansion will be used to power the cable project.
The new solar array is expected to be installed by early June, Hansen noted.
“The solar (energy) feeds into a battery bank that we built in 2014,” Hansen explained during the April 25 board meeting. “They need year-round power, so they are going to use our power source to run their equipment and then to send their data from the island to the mainland for processing.”
The Shoals Marine Laboratory produces its own power through its current solar array system, wind and a diesel generator. The laboratory has reduced its use of diesel by 90% in recent years after running the generator constantly in past summers, burning 10,000 gallons of diesel on average, per Hansen.
Without expanding the solar array on Appledore Island to help support the university cable project, Hansen said the diesel generator would be needed.
The board questioned Hansen on why the project seeks 10 times the amount of anticipated kilowatt power needed to support the separate cable project.
“In the summer we need all that power on the island to run all our buildings, to run our program. Running (solar) in the winter would be no problem,” he said. “We can leave the existing solar we have on now and run their system, no problem. We're a seasonal operation where we don't need that power in the winter. But in the summer, we need all that power.”
“When there is insufficient sun and/or wind to keep its batteries charged, a diesel generator runs to keep the power on,” a description of the solar expansion project continues. “The more load on (the laboratory’s) electrical grid, the more the diesel generator is needed. Over the last decade or more, (the laboratory) has worked hard to reduce its electrical base load thus reducing the amount of diesel fuel burned. The solar (photovoltaic) proposed is needed to supplement the additional energy needs of the Cabled Acoustic Array.”
To prepare for the solar array expansion, 2,500 square feet of vegetation will be cleared from the site.
The research laboratory, owned by the Star Island Corporation, is operated in tandem with the University of New Hampshire and Cornell University.
The board unanimously approved the laboratory’s application and plan, giving it the final nod to proceed with the solar array expansion. Planning Board member Earldean Wells was not in attendance at the meeting.
The approved University of New Hampshire cable project calls for a trench to be dug along the gravel road on Broad Cove to install a submarine cable and utility manhole, which will connect to a sensor platform at the Shoals Marine Lab.
“The cabled array will complement existing oceanographic monitoring infrastructure allowing studies to be performed that may reveal significant connections between coastal measurements and the overall Gulf of Maine environment,” reads a November letter from Jennifer Miksis-Olds, director of the university’s Center for Acoustics Research and Education, to the town Planning Board. “The cabled system is being designed to synoptically collect acoustic, oceanographic, and biogeochemical measurements. Acoustic signals, as opposed to visual and chemical signals, can propagate long distances in the ocean and provide the most long-ranging means for marine life and humans to gain information about the environment.”
Project records for the cable installation show the trench will not be wider than 35 inches and will not be dug more than a foot down into the ground.
This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Appledore Island solar array expanding for UNH Shoals Marine Lab
