Davis-Monthan Air Force Base will be using Arizona’s sun to cool its youth center by summer.

Sopogy Inc., a Hawaii-based energy company, is installing a new type of solar-energy system on the roof of the building that will use heat from sunlight to create chilled air.

The project is part of the military’s plan to cut installations’ energy costs.

The Department of Defense found that air conditioning accounts for 30 percent to 60 percent of its total facility energy expenditures. Officials decided that switching from fossil fuels to solar heat would help the department meet its renewable-energy targets.

Sopogy’s system uses heat from sunlight to create cool air in a process known as absorption chilling.

By May 1, there will be 72 mirrored “micro-concentrated” solar collectors, which are about 12-feet long, weigh less than 200 pounds and will provide about 66 tons of cold air, according to a Davis-Monthan spokesman.

The mirrors focus the sunlight on a pipe filled with a heat transfer fluid that runs to a solar absorption chiller, which reacts to the heat and creates cold air, said Darren Kimura, president and CEO of Sopogy.

The parabolic mirrors are motorized to track the sun’s movement, Kimura said. Most air-conditioning systems in the United States use a compressor and a refrigerant, which creates cold air but uses a large amount of electricity. Industrial absorption chillers are typically driven by natural gas or waste heat.

Kimura said Sopogy installed the first air-conditioning system using the technology in 2009 in California.

All of the materials used in the system are nonhazardous, Kimura said. The liquid that reacts with heat to make cold is lithium bromide, which is found naturally in ocean water.

“It takes the same reaction that you would find if you were on a beach on a hot day,” Kimura said. “There’s the hot sun but then that cool air, the cool breeze, that’s the same effect that the chiller has except the chiller is much more concentrated.”

Davis-Monthan will be the second military installation to use the technology. The first was Fort Bliss, near El Paso.

The company began working with NASA on the technology years ago, Kimura said, adding that the Pentagon identified Davis-Monthan as a prime site.

Sopogy’s system also will provide thermal storage and natural gas as backup for the cooling system on cloudy days.

“This gives you cold air 24 hours, seven days a week,” Kimura said, adding that the cost is less than half of the cost of electric refrigeration.

For now, the technology is only for businesses or big buildings like schools.

“We’re trying to downsize it so it can be cost-effective in your home and we’re not quite there yet,” Kimura said.

Michelle A. Monroe is a University of Arizona journalism student and a NASA Space Grant intern. Contact her at mmonroe@azstarnet.com

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“Green” air conditioning systems generally consist of conventional compression chillers powered by electricity from photovoltaic panels or concentrated solar power plants. While such conventional chillers and air conditioners use electricity to run a compressor, a double-effect absorption chiller such as the one being tested at Masdar City uses heat to activate a chemical process that provides chilled water for cooling.

If successful, the technology could become a major source of cooling across the 6km2 city. Solar cooling is ideal for medium-scale cooling loads, such as those of supermarkets and shopping malls and can also be implemented in a central cooling plant configuration (“district cooling”). It is especially well suited to address peak cooling demand as the solar thermal energy supply closely matches high daytime cooling demand.

“This project reflects the ongoing innovation taking place at Masdar City as we push the boundaries of sustainable cooling to deliver new solutions that not only compete with conventional systems in terms of quality but also excel in terms of what we can achieve via optimised and cost-effective implementation of state-of-the-art solar technologies,” according to Afshin Afshari, Head of Energy Management at Masdar City.

The collectors include a Sopogy parabolic trough collector with uniaxial tracking and a total mirror aperture area of 334m2. It heats thermal oil, whose heat is transferred to the system’s pressurised water circuit through a heat exchanger. A Mirroxx linear Fresnel collector with uniaxial tracking and a total mirror aperture area of 132m2 heats the pressurised water directly.

Schneider Electric provided the control system components for the pilot plant and EM Hidromontaza installed the integrated system. The Fraunhofer Institute of Solar Energy will analyse the monitored data and assess system performance.

The two solar thermal collector systems have been in successful test operation already for more than three months, explained Simon Bräuniger, project manager for Masdar’s pilot plants. “The collector’s thermal energy has been driving the Broad 50-refrigeration-ton double-effect absorption chiller that is cooling our office building since mid-September, marking the start of full operation for the pilot project.”

The system provides sustainable cooling to 1700m2 of office space using advanced air-conditioning and delivery equipment from Swegon, such as active chilled beams and an air handling unit that achieves 75% energy recovery. The objective is to demonstrate that high-temperature solar thermal cooling is more cost effective and requires a smaller collector footprint compared to a conventional electric chiller plant powered by solar-generated electricity. The solar cooling pilot installation produces cooling equivalent to approximately 80 conventional split-type air conditioning systems, leading to annual emissions reductions of approximately 70,000 kg of CO2.

The pilot plant will be operated for approximately two years to test the technology’s suitability in Abu Dhabi’s climate and weather conditions, and assess the scope of cleaning and maintenance requirements.

From TheFutureBuild.com: http://www.thefuturebuild.com/masdar-turns-to-sun-s-heat-to-cool-buildings-28298/news.html

Tony Davis Arizona Daily Star | Posted: Saturday, February 4, 2012 12:00 am

A smorgasbord of new clean energy projects at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base shows what’s needed to create an economy “built to last,” said a top White House environmental aide who visited them Friday.

Council on Environmental Quality Chairwoman Nancy Sutley visited a solar-panel-topped basketball court, a device using dry cells to inject hydrogen into car engines and an energy-saving, ceramic-paint-topped building.

She quoted the Obama administration’s economic catchphrase as she proclaimed these test projects are examples that should be transferred to civilian life to build a clean-energy economy.

During the tour, base officials discussed plans to have the California-based Sun Edison utility build enough solar panels to boost the base’s solar capacity to 14.5 megawatts, or about 35 percent of the total power used there. The project starts construction in March and is slated to finish in May, officials said.

They added that the project will put the base above the national standard of 71.5 percent renewable energy sources for military facilities. The base has two solar-panel facilities providing about six megawatts of power to homes.

Sutley, touring with Tucson Mayor Jonathan Rothschild, saw:

• An array of Sopogy MicroCSP thermal energy collectors under construction that will chill water that in turn will cool an educational-and-recreational center for base kids. The cost wasn’t available.

• A ceramic-painted building with nontoxic paint that’s supposed to use 22 percent less energy due to the ceramic material’s insulating qualities. The paint costs about $80 per gallon. It was one of four projects under development that Sutley saw at the aging-aircraft maintenance facility known as the Boneyard.

• A microturbine generator that can run on relatively clean natural gas or propane, as opposed to dirtier diesel fuel. The generators cost $100,000 for a 65 kilowatt model and up to $1.7 million for a model generating one megawatt. The turbines power a small building and an air compressor used on pneumatic tools.

• A cooling device that uses a little less energy than a standard evaporative cooler and 80 percent less than an air conditioner. A 5-ton unit costs $5,000.

• Dry cell generators that use the power of alternators to generate hydrogen to use as auto fuels. They can provide up to 6 percent of a vehicle’s fuel requirements, and improve gasoline mileage by 15 to 20 percent, D-M officials said, for a $1,000-per-vehicle kit.

“It’s self-contained, mounted under the hood, with no moving parts,” Davis-Monthan Major Andy Middione told Sutley.

“Do you think it will work on my Subaru?” Sutley asked, to which Middione replied “yes,” adding said it could be installed by any mechanic.

• A 144-room dormitory, costing $12.8 million and partially occupied, that has passive solar heating and piping for gray water along with the solar panels atop the basketball court.

The tour came as President Obama is pushing a sweeping renewable-energy policy calling for continued tax credits to encourage solar purchases. At the same time, he’s supporting continued development of natural gas reserves, which has stirred some concern among renewable advocates that the cheaper gas will discourage use of more expensive renewables.

Meeting with reporters after the tour, Sutley signaled the administration’s willingness to continue to push for more solar panel manufacturing in this country. That’s despite widespread cutbacks among domestic panel manufacturers due to competition from cheaper Chinese panels. Sutley said there is demand for solar panels around the country, and “people want to be close to the demand.”

On StarNet: Read more environment-related articles at

azstarnet.com/news/science/environment

Contact reporter Tony Davis at tdavis@azstarnet.com or 806-7746.
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Sopogy revolutionized solar thermal technology with MicroCSP. Developing modular collectors about one-third the size of a traditional concentrated solar power mirror, Sopogy cut the cost of solar thermal energy to a fraction of the cost. Proprietary storage units stabilize volatile energy production when cloudy and prolong production after sunset. Sopogy’s thermal energy is the fuel for stable, renewable power generation, air conditioning, and process heat.

This video will be played during APEC Leaders’ Week on the special in-room TV station, created for the Hawaii Host Committee by 1013 integrated, a Pacific Focus Inc. company. LWTV will be seen in the 30 APEC host hotels on O’ahu on the hotel television network of Visitor Video Inc. in conjunction with Convention Television.

Our planet will support a projected 9.3 billion people by 2050. Visionaries around the world are meeting this challenge now—working on solutions for a flourishing human race by addressing dwindling resources for clean water, energy, food and space to live.

The sun generates far more energy than necessary for life on Earth, yet only a fraction of that is utilized for solar power. In Arizona an innovative company “First Solar” makes thin-film photovoltaic modules affordable and recyclable, while an engineer in Hawai’i with “Sopogy” addresses the challenge of storage.

Lisa Krueger, VP for Sustainable Development at First Solar in Arizona Lisa has a Chemical Engineering degree from Missouri University of Science and Technology and an M.B.A. from Rice. At First Solar she led the vision for creating pre-funded collection and recycling of their photovoltaic modules.

Darren T. Kimura, President and CEO of Sopogy, Inc. in Hawaii Darren studied electrical engineering at Portland State then received a B.A. from the University of Hawaii. He created the core technologies for Sopogy while at Energy Laboratories, a clean technology incubator.

Pacific Business News – by Linda Chiem , Pacific Business News

Date: Tuesday, August 9, 2011, 2:19pm HST

By: Jane Wells
Correspondent

No state in the nation is as dependent on oil as Hawaii.

Oil fuels 90 percent of its power grid, and all that fuel has to be shipped in. Governor Neil Abercrombie estimates oil costs the state of 1.3 million people $7 billion a year.

So Hawaii has been investing heavily in alternative sources of power, with a goal of getting 30 percent of all power from alternative sources by 2030, compared to about 10 percent now. Going green is a big theme here.

Even Hawaiian-born Pierre Omidyar, founder of Ebay [EBAY  30.78    0.83  (+2.77%)  ], is putting his money where his mouth is, as his charitable organizationsupports some sustainability projects.

But in Hawaii, NIMBY (not in my backyard) takes on a whole new meaning. When land is limited, the entire state is your backyard. Winning over the locals to the idea of wind farms and solar arrays in paradise takes patience and flexibility.

“I think it’s a great step forward,” says Carol Feinga, who helps head a community association in the town of Laie, on Oahu’s north shore. She’s talking about a new wind farm in nearby Kahuku built by First Wind, which will provide enough power to serve 7,700 homes. “For us to succeed and survive there are opportunities available for renewable resources,” she says in the shadow of the massive turbines.

But, so far, green power isn’t any cheaper, even with federal subsidies. “Right now we’re probably a little bit more expensive (than traditional electricity), but over a relatively short period of time, we’re going to be competitive,” says First Wind’s Chief Development Officer Kurt Adams.

His firm was able to build the new wind farm with a government loan, and Adams says that for the first time, a plant will combine turbines with a special battery system to smooth out volatility to the electrical grid caused by changes in wind velocity. Both the turbines and the batteries used here are built by American companies.

The Kahuku wind farm sits just out of view of the Turtle Bay Resort, but you can’t miss it if you’re driving on the main road. First Wind also operates a larger wind farm on Maui,  visible on the mountainside while driving from the airport to Lahaina.

The company would also like to build on Molokai as part of a plan to capture wind on outer islands and bring that power underwater to Honolulu, where it’s most needed. But locals on Molokai have not agreed on what land First Wind can use. David Murdock’s Castle & Cooke is running into similar problems on Lanai, where locals are pushing back against a wind farm that some feel will do more harm than good.

“Hawaiians have a very strong sense of their place,” says Kurt Adams of First Wind. “So we like to reach out to the community and spend a lot of time working with the community before we break ground.”

That’s something that Darren T. Kimura, CEO of Sopogy, already knows. His company is based in Hawaii, developing technology for concentrated solar power plants around the world, including one on the Big Island.

“The islands are separated, so every single island has its own grid,” he says, explaining the challenge of integrating renewable energy, with its intermittent nature, such as clouds over the sun. “Our technology incorporates storage, where we are able to basically buffer the effects of clouds.” Kimura says that with concentrated solar, a plant can store power to be used after the sun sets, “way up to maybe even midnight.”

He says solar power companies haven’t experienced the same pushback from locals that the wind energy industry has seen. Still, he’s heard complaints, like feedback on Sopogy’s solar collector called the SopoNova . “We heard from the locals here, ‘Wow, SopoNova’s really ugly’—and it did look ugly. We redesigned it, we designed the aesthetics of it to match the ground color for example, and we made it blend in with local topology.”

Such efforts pay off. Green energy has won over converts. “We lack sustainability,” says resident John Primacio of Kahuku, who’s become a fan of the wind farm. He was impressed that First Wind actually bought the land for the facility rather than leasing it.

“We interpret that to mean they’re going to stay here,” says Primacio. “They’re going to develop and continue providing wind energy. It can only help the endeavor to cut the state from buying oil.”

The high-tech company is using its expertise to compete globally

By Alan Yonan Jr.

POSTED: 12:30 a.m. HST, Mar 13, 2011

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From its modest headquarters in an industrial area near Honolulu Airport, homegrown high-tech company Sopogy Inc. is taking on some of the world’s biggest names in renewable energy.

Launched in 2002 by local entrepreneur Darren Kimura, Sopogy has leveraged its expertise in the field of concentrated solar power to win contracts on the mainland and across the globe. Among its competitors are Siemens AG, a German conglomerate with a market capitalization of $116 billion, and Spain’s Abengoa SA, another multibillion-dollar firm.

Sopogy, which pioneered the development of “MicroCSP” technology, recently announced its biggest deal to date: the installation of 200 megawatts of generating capacity in China.

“Sopogy is a perfect example of a tech company that has hit a home run in Hawaii,” said Bill Spencer, president of the Hawaii Venture Capital Association. “Darren is a testament to how a technology company in Hawaii can seek out a global market and deliver. There are no boundaries if it is done properly.”

Sopogy’s patented system is a variation on an older solar energy technology first tested 30 years ago in the Mojave Desert. The Department of Energy oversaw the project near Barstow, Calif., that featured huge mirrored troughs used to concentrate solar energy and create steam that turned a turbine to generate electricity.

Kimura and his team took the technology, scaled down the troughs to one-fourth of the size and made other improvements that resulted in the systems being more mobile and less costly. Since completing research and development in 2005 Sopogy has installed six MicroCSP systems and has at least six more in the development stage. Project locations include Abu Dhabi, Mexico and Papua New Guinea.

The company has been growing at about 300 percent a year since 2005, but Kimura said he expects that to slow to a mere 60 percent to 80 percent annually in the coming years.

The 37-year-old Kimura, who launched his first company while a student at the University of Hawaii, has assembled an impressive management team that includes former Kamehameha Schools Vice President Michael Loo as chief financial officer.

Kimura remains chairman of the board of Energy Industries, an energy-efficiency consulting firm he launched in 2004 that now has offices across the western U.S., Hawaii, Guam and Japan.

“I can still say that all my companies are based here because that’s fundamental to what I do,” Kimura said. “I’m trying to develop an energy industry here that we can use to create critical mass.”

Kimura’s commitment to Hawaii, both through his business ventures and community outreach, will help pave the way for future local entrepreneurs looking to get ventures off the ground here, said Yuka Nagashima, president of the Hawaii Technology Development Corp.

“He’s very community oriented. He’s passing along his experience, and the more successful companies that Hawaii produces, the easier it will be for the rest of us,” Nagashima said.

“It helps counter the image of Hawaii as only a tourist destination.”

Sopogy was one of several Hawaii startups that benefited from a now-defunct state program known as Act 221 that provided tax breaks to investors who put money into local tech companies.

“It made people more willing to invest in Hawaii companies. That’s why I supported 221,” Spencer said. “We needed a way to get people to invest in Hawaii. At the same time, we have to have confidence in our entrepreneurs. We just needed to prime the pump,” he said.

Sopogy has 42 patents in various stages on its technology, Kimura said. One of the breakthroughs the company was able to achieve through its R&D was a way to use the heat from its solar collectors to turn a turbine without using steam. Standard CSP systems, as well as many oil-fired generators, use steam to turn turbines. But using steam requires a constant supply of fresh water. In addition, steam corrodes turbine blades, requiring frequent maintenance.

Sopogy’s system instead uses a thermodynamic cycle that achieves the same results without using steam, Kimura said. Parabolic mirrors made of polished aluminum are used to collect sunlight and focus it on a tube carrying a heat-transfer fluid, usually mineral oil. The mineral oil is heated to about 500 degrees Fahrenheit and pumped through an evaporator where the heat is used to vaporize a liquid refrigerant. The vapors turn a turbine that generates electricity. The mineral oil is then sent back to the mirrors to be reheated. The vaporized refrigerant is cooled and returned to a liquid state to be used again.

Sopogy also uses its MicroCSP technology to power air-conditioning systems using an absorption cooling process. The system works in much the same as a natural gas air-conditioning system.

In both systems, water is heated to temperatures just cooler than 200 degrees and collected in a storage tank. The water then goes through an absorption chiller that cools the cold water used in the building’s fan units.

The results are in and finalists have been chosen for the top North American renewable energy leaders, innovations and projects of the year. Readers’ Choice voting opens today!