Solar panels set to be installed at Bay Model Visitor Center

By Brandon Beach
District Public Affairs

SAN FRANCISCO, May 13, 2010 - The Bay Model Visitor Center will soon be tapping the sun for its electricity.

Construction began in April to install a new solar-panel system onto the roof of this U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, San Francisco District facility in Sausalito, Calif.

Funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the $13.2 million project backs an executive order signed by President Obama to reduce federal government emissions by 28 percent before 2020.

“The goal for this project is net zero, meaning no consumption off the grid,” said Michael Garant of Hal Hays Construction, Inc., the project’s contractor. “There’s even the possibility of returning some [power] back to the grid.”

Not only will the new rooftop system supply energy to this 145,000 square-foot building, which was once a World War II-era shipbuilding warehouse, but to the district’s adjacent base yard and nearby dock area as well.

More than 2,300 solar panels will be installed covering approximately 60 percent of the visitor center’s barrel-shaped roof. Power production of the system is estimated at 777,680 kilowatt hours per year, said Mike Dillabough, chief of the district’s Operations and Readiness Division. Current annual usage is just under 770,000 kWh.

The panels will also incorporate a glass designed with an anti-reflective finish to reduce any reflection to nearby residences, said Hatim Mustafa, the district’s on-site project engineer.

In addition to the solar-panel system, other project work items include seismic upgrades, roof replacement, asbestos removal, new exterior skylights, updates to museum exhibits and improvements to the model’s hydraulic inner workings.

The model, a piece of Bay Area history, was built in 1957 as a three-dimensional replica of the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento Delta. For over forty years, scientists used the model to study impacts to the Bay by simulating tides, currents and river flows. It closed in 2000 as a research facility and opened as a public educational center administered by the Corps of Engineers shortly after. The model encompasses an interior space of over one-and-a-half acres.

During the renovation, the center will be closed approximately through the middle of June.