The State of Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, as part of their renewable energy initiative, elected to install a turbine in this wind-swept park.
Located close to Buffalo Ridge in wind farm country, the DNR recognized that wind was an optimum resource for the renewable energy project slated for the site.
We worked with Foster Mechanical with our Tier II service. We bid the major solar components along with the engineering design and commissioning package.
Foster Mechanical is well known regionally in the mechanical contracting industry, but had never done a solar system.
The Wellstone, a four story building, is a combination of mixed-income residential and commercial space.
The Wellstone was honored as a “Top Project” by Finance and Commerce, which honors the best new constructions in Minnesota each year.
Completed for the Republican National Convention in 2008, this solar thermal system is used to pre-heat the incoming water for the massive district steam plant.
The engineering evaluation required to interface the solar to the existing system was very complex.
As of this writing, this project is the State of WI’s largest solar plant used for heating a commercial building. The solar plant was part of a new construction project. The solar thermal concept had been identified on the architects and engineers bid documents. The plans were incomplete however to build a system from. Mitchell’s Heating and Cooling was the successful bidding contractor on the solar portion of the project. Mitchell’s hired ECI to take the concept and turn it into an engineered design that could be installed.
With enough energy to power four average homes, this large solar installation helps clean up the groundwater of the landfill. BAE considers it a dual environmental success.
