Exelon has completed its $60 million solar panel project that began operation in December at 1201 W. 120th St. photo credti: John J. Kim/Sun-Times

The Chicago Sun-Times has a great article on a new use for an old industrial site – a solar power farm.

As Exelon celebrated completion of the nation’s largest urban solar-power plant, the next-door neighbors in West Pullman celebrated a new life for a former polluted industrial site.

The plant began operating in December, with all 32,292 panels tested and in service in March, and final site work just completed. [snip]

The former International Harvester property — now the solar plant — had become an eyesore, a health hazard and a dumping ground for other communities’ old tires and other debris.

Most cities in the Northeast and Midwest have these sites. They are multi-acre collections of decaying buildings, trash and the occasional hazardous material dump. The buildings would require millions of dollars in renovations and upgrades just to be attractive to a buyer or renter. This is a great solution, and one with little overhead.

This site is 41 acres. It will generate 14K megawatts of power. The cost was about $60 million. I’m sure all the appropriate tax credits and such will be utilized. Regardless of the level of government support, it represents a clever use of the site.

In an afternoon Bloggers’ Roundtable today, Dr. Kevin Geiss, Program Director, Energy Security, talked about the U.S. Army’s work in his area.

The Army was allotted about $1.5 billion in the recent Stimulus Bill. Of that, about $700 million was designated for energy related projects.

The Army’s goal is to have about 25-30% of its energy use, 1.5 gigawatts of energy, in renewable energy sources by 2017. That goal is separate from the reductions imposed on the Army, and all Federal agencies, by recent legislation.

At Army installations, the reduction in BTU’s is on target. With respect to the non-tactical vehicle fleet, Dr. Geiss felt that they were about half way to the target. The Army’s leasing of neighborhood electric vehicles (NEV’s), discussed in a BRT on January 12, 2009 and the intended acquisition of 502 hybrid sedans will help a great deal in that regard.

Tactical vehicles and combat installations are also being examined for energy savings and better use of existing energy sources.

Tactical vehicles such as tanks or personnel carriers have had system after system added with little regard to an overall design concept. Some vehicles have as little as two minutes of operating time when on their batteries alone. Geiss talked about vehicles that used nearly double the amount of energy for non-movement systems than for moving the vehicle. Cooling, communications and targeting systems all take power that was not designed into the original vehicle.

Combat bases, forward operating bases (FOB’s), currently have a private with a can of fuel as their control on energy use. In order to tie in renewable sources such as wind or solar, and to manage fuel used for energy, tactical grids will have to be created and managed. A computer will manage the grid, just as they do the electrical grid in the United States.

The big project for the Army is the proposed 500 megawatt solar farm at Fort Irwin in California. This is a massive project and Geiss announced that the developer would be named next week. The Army is looking for other partners, both in the private and public sector, for other such projects.