Solar PV Facility at Fort Hunter Liggett Is the Largest Array on a U.S. Military Base
Here’s a video that shows where I spent my afternoon: on a tour of the (currently) 2 megawatt solar photovoltaics facility at Fort Hunter Liggett in Central California, now the largest solar array on a military base in the U.S. – and soon to be a micro-grid. As I took a tour with some colleagues, work was underway for Phase Two, which will add two more MW, and enough battery storage such that the only connection to the larger grid will be to enable the base to sell excess power to the local utility (Pacific Gas and Electric).
Everything about what I saw was impressive, except the price. Because the PV canopy serves dual purposes (power generation and a “garage” for many hundreds of enormous pieces of equipment) it’s 18 feet off the ground and built on piers that need to withstand the impact of a tank running into them. Those piers are a yard in diameter, and 10 feet into the ground – and we’re talking about ground that is super-compacted to withstand the punishment that such equipment will inflict as it moves in and out over the years. It’s about $8/watt installed.
I am actually not real upset about that price considering what they are getting and what it does. Heavy duty mounting at an extended height with grid interactive inverters (grid tie or independent as required) and from my best guess at least 6.2 tons of the batteries I would have chosen for which I was unable to get a price at this time. Add wiring and housing inverters and batteries and installation labor and I am thinking that is probably a pretty good price.
In Phase One (what I saw) there are no grid interactive inverters and no batteries. There IS, however, a great deal of installation cost that goes beyond anything one can imagine in the normal commercial/industrial/residential world.