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Title: Georgia Power Corporate Headquarters solar system. Final construction status report

Technical Report ·
OSTI ID:5448926

The 24-story high-rise and the three story low-rise consumes about 50,000 Btu/ft/sup 2/-yr (including computer process loads). The solar system will provide about 18.6% of the heating and cooling loads. There are 23,712 square feet of parabolic trough collectors which collect a maximum of 3.4 million Btu/hr. Past experience and advice from previous DOE projects lead to the use of a treated water recirculation freeze protection system in lieu of an ethylene glycol system. The project uses a unique version of the Delavan tracker in order to perform properly in the southeastern climate. Conclusions reached during this project include: (1) even with performance type specifications, detailed specifications for intergration into building mechanical systems are required, (2) reaction time of the computer control system can inhibit the collector tracking system operation, (3) extreme care must be used in a large system design to insure balanced flow, (4) the Delavan tracker can be altered to operate more efficiently, (5) the GPC solar system is providing slightly less than the predicted amount of energy, due to apparently higher than expected parasitic losses, (6) total available direct radiation appears to be less than predicted for summer months, (7) the electrical hardware at the collector motors requires more maintenance than expected because of the harsh environment at their locations, (8) the control logic has to be altered to deal with hot hazy days, and (9) there are a number of improvements needed to make the system more maintenance free.

Research Organization:
Heery Energy Consultants, Inc., Atlanta, GA (USA)
DOE Contract Number:
AC04-81AL12548
OSTI ID:
5448926
Report Number(s):
DOE/AL/12548-T1; ON: DE84003496
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English