There are five solar lamps at its parking lot and four solar panels behind its amphitheater leading to the walk paths along Micro Beach. The solar panels were installed in the later part of 1990s. “This island is fabulous for wind and solar power. It’s just so remarkable,” says Park Ranger Nancy Kelchner.
The solar panels are unobtrusive and hold up very well in the heavy winds. It is skinny with a small collector. It collects power all day so it can be used at night. “They work great and the lights for the walk path and the lights for the parking lot they stay on all night, its great,” she says,
The solar panels face the morning light and in some cases these will actually pivot with the motor and follow the sun. “These solar panels are a little bit older and so these are facing southwest, where it gets the most sunlight it could get,” she said. Inside the pole is where the batteries are. So it is all encompassed in one small plate.
She explained that it is a safety factor for people walking about in the area especially during night time. It is also for the people in the community so they can also enjoy the park.
“We are not hurting anything in nature, we are not adding to our climate change global warming problem,” she said.
Even though there are days that are cloudy, the panels still collect energy. “Just because we have a couple of cloudy days there is enough ambient light. The solar collectors get any light. It doesn’t have to be perfectly good sun,” she said.
Kelchner also discussed that the factory that produced the solar panels probably emit some kind of carbon footprint. “However, planting trees and using solar power will offset it. So we can balance it out. And the factories are also moving to solar power and once you get a factory into this all natural renewable energy resource there will be no carbon footprint,” she said.
There are plans of installing more solar panels in the area to generate more energy. “The amphitheater has no solar yet. We are hoping that sometime in the spring. The energy audit that we had last spring and summer will provide us with a number of solar panels for the visitor’s center as well as for the two flat sides here at the amphitheater. It’s not going to run the air conditioning. However, we can augment that power with the solar. But again our carbon footprint will be very small,” she said.
