Fort Huachuca to Benefit from New Solar Technology: Dish-Stirling System Couples Solar Power with Engine to Generate Electricity

摘要

Fort Huachuca will soon use energy from the sun to help power a small portion of the southern Arizona military post, using renewable-energy technologies enhanced at Sandia National Laboratories in partnership with industry. A prototype dish-Stirling solar system, which consists of a large dish of solar concentrators and a Stirling heat engine, will be installed at Fort Huachuca in July and should be in operation about two weeks later. The system will provide 7 kilowatts (kW) of electricity, or about 1 percent of the electricity currently used to power the Joint Interoperability Test Command's (JITC) main testing building, which has 93,000 square feet. The JJTC tests and evaluates electronic equipment for the various branches of the military, other federal agencies, state and local governments, and private industry to ensure they use similar operating systems and conform to certain specifications. The work is done for the Department of Defense and Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA).