While Americans across the nation celebrated the 4th of July, the Shoals community was also more excited to celebrate the 5th: the night that just might grant the island an independence of its own!
There's some exciting news at Shoals this week and the whole island is buzzing! Why? Because, for the first time ever in Shoals Marine Lab' history, the island made it through the night on clean energy alone! Thanks to an ideal solar day, a generous donation, and two dedicated Sustainable Engineering Interns (SEIs), we are now one step closer to a more sustainable Shoals!
On Thursday, July 5, 2018, Gabby and Tak made the decision to stay up all night and monitor the new microgrid system which was installed this summer to relieve our main green grid of the intensive load. The hope was that by installing this isolated microgrid, the island might be able to make it through the night on clean energy alone and entirely eliminate the need to use the back-up diesel generator after ideal solar days. However, no one was quite sure if it could do the trick.
Up until this point, it was all hypothetical, as the switch-over is currently manually operated. So, everyone wondered... could the system power the pump all night without falling short? After extensive research into the system and deliberation with the island engineers and mentors, Tak and Gabby decided they were up for the challenge, one that would prove to not only be rewarding, but historic.
The duo watched all night as the battery charge was drained (from the starting point of 52.8 Volts at the beginning of the night) closer and closer to the switch-over point (51.2 Volts), whereby the diesel generator would then takeover. But the system never reached that point! Instead, the team recorded that as the sun rose on July 6th, the charge on the batteries read 52 Volts! Not only did the system make it all the way through the night, it made it with room to spare!
So, what next? Now that we know the green grid system on an ideal solar day can support the island’s electrical load all day and all night, the next push will be to automate the switch-over, so that hopefully too many interns and engineers don't have to pull all-nighters on Appledore! But, we're sure glad that Gabby and Tak decided to!
For more information on our Mobile Renewable Energy Unit (aka, the isolated microgrid), checkout our 'Resources' page!
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