Power for Palmyra

The Nature Conservancy said it cut fossil fuel use by 95 percent at its research facility on Palmyra Atoll with a $1.2 million renewable energy project.

The environmental organization finished installing a wind turbine, 385 solar panels and 216 batteries at Palmyra Atoll in May after three years of planning.

"It is one of the most remote places on the planet," said David Sellers, acting director of the Nature Conservancy Palmyra Program. "It is very important we have everything together and everything planned out." 

The 680-acre atoll, 1,000 miles south of Hawaii, became a national wildlife refuge and research center in 2001. The Conservancy bought it from the Fullard-Leo family for $30 million in 2000, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service purchased a portion of the atoll the following year.

The new energy system was built on 240-acre Cooper Island, the largest of Palmyra’s 26 islets. Cooper is owned by the Conservancy. The rest of the atoll is owned by U.S. Fish and Wildlife.

The high price to bring fuel to the research center, with diesel costing $11 to $13 per gallon, was a major driving force for installing renewables, Sellers said.

"The costs — if you combine the shipping, the fuel and the maintenance — became one of our three highest costs for operating the station," he said.

Supplying fuel to Palmyra made electricity costs for the atoll more than seven times the national average, with the Conservancy paying 93 cents per kilowatt-hour. The average price of electricity in the United States was 12.35 cents per kilowatt-hour in May, according to figures from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

There are no permanent residents on Palmyra, but the Conservancy staff rotates living on the atoll, switching out a group of five members every three months. In the summer the population can swell to 35 on the entire atoll as researchers use the facility.

Local and national groups donated more than $500,000 in funding and $350,000 in equipment and services to help the Conservancy build the 105-kilowatt system.

Maryland Heights, Mo.-based SunEdison, a major power producer in Hawaii, donated the 385 solar panels for the project.

The wind turbine was donated by Minnesota-based SheerWind, but the design was modified to enclose the blades with nets over air intakes to protect birds.

Susan White, superintendent of operations of the Pacific Marine National Monuments for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said the wind machine’s impact on the bird population was a concern.

"Palmyra’s got tens of thousands of birds. Wind turbines and birds sometimes have issues. We were concerned about that," White said.

As the system is made up of intermittent renewable energy sources — with an estimated 4 1/2 hours of peak sunlight for the solar panels to charge and the wind turbine producing its full capacity of 5 megawatts 80 percent of the time — the Conservancy invested in batteries.

If both renewables completely dropped off­line, the batteries would be able to support the energy demands of the facility before having to resort to the biodiesel generators, said Sellers.

"If we were to discharge the batteries fully, we have enough energy in the batteries to last us 1 1/2 days," Sellers said.

The Conservancy used 216 sealed lead-acid batteries from Pennsylvania-based C&D technologies as backup, Sellers said.

"Because we are so remote, we needed something that was very robust and very proven. With the batteries we didn’t want to take any risk, or as minimal as possible," he said.

As each of the 216 batteries weighs about 200 pounds, Sellers said the Conservancy was lucky to have support from volunteers to get the entire system installed in six weeks.

"Thank goodness we had the CDF (Engineering) guys there," Sellers said.

Maui-based CDF Engineering donated $120,000 in labor to the project.