Since we put our EV on the road in 2002 we've progressively worked to make it a greener vehicle. We recently installed a 5.1kw photovoltaic array on our school to charge the van. Our generator runs on Biodiesel that we make from recycled grease. No fossil fuels are involved!
Over the last two years, the major work that we have done on our electric vehicle project has been off-vehicle work to make it a zero emissions vehicle (ZEV). We just completed the installation of a 5,120 watt grid-tied net-metering photovoltaic system at our school. We've installed 36 BP Solar 160 watt panels, and a Fronius IG5100 inverter. The PV array was funded completely by grant money from MBNA and the US Department of Energy. The grant from MBNA was written by NHCS students, the USDOE grant was written by Fox Island Electric Cooperative.
The 1986 Volkswagen Vanagon Syncro electric vehicle conversion that the PV array was designed to power has a battery pack comprised of 20 Trojan T-105 6V, 225A batteries. The battery pack has a fully charged capacity of 225A x 120V equaling 27,000 watts, or 27 kw. We consider the battery pack to be fully discharged at 80% depth of discharge. Therefore, our battery pack needs an input of 21,600W to be recharged from this depth of discharge.
On North Haven island we get an average of 4.6 hours of daily sun. Therefore, our array is capable of creating 23,552 watts of electricity daily. The electricity captured by the panels is then transformed into AC power by our Fronius Inverter, which is 95% efficient and puts out 22,374 watts of electricity from the 23,552 watt input. This is more than enough power to fully recharge the electric vehicles battery pack using only the sun.
-Kelsey Jones (from North Haven's Renewability Proposal)
Tour de Sol 2005
The Tour de Sol is the premier alternative fuel vehicle competition in the country. Students from high school and colleges compete with one another using vehicles that they've built to efficiently transport people with a minimum of negative effects on the environment. The goal is not to move from place to place as quickly as possible, rather, the goal is to move with the least emissions possible, as efficiently as possible. Vehicles undergo extensive technical testing to make sure that they are safe, including stationary tests of weight distribution and wiring safety, as well as moving tests of acceleration, handling, and braking.
NHCS students have competed in the Tour de Sol with North Haven's electric vehicle in 2002, and 2003. This year students have worked on a remote starting unit to automatically start the generator when the batteries are too low, and shut it down when the batteries are full. In addition, they've replaced the EV's battery pack, made biodiesel from grease in the science lab to run the generator, and installed a photovoltaic array on the school to, among other things, provide more than enough renewable energy to charge the van every day.
North Haven's entry in the Tour, a heavy four wheel drive vehicle capable of carrying 7 passengers, is quite unusual. In Saratoga Springs we've already seen two ground hugging two seat vehicles with fiberglass bodies. The "E-Van" (as it is often called) looks quite lumpy in contrast. Nonetheless, it's perfect for the island, where you never need to go far, or fast, and you might want to bring six friends along. -John Dietter
Tour de Sol Journal Preparations and Day 1
Okay, let's go back in time. It was yesterday, and the EV wasn't quite ready for the road. We had come a long way in the last few days: Ian and Mellisa had perfected their recipe for biodiesel, and had made about ten gallons of the fuel from used fryer oil from Cooper's Landing and The Coal Wharf; Ansel, Tiffany, and I had done the routine maintenance on the generator; and we had a lage, lingering voltage leak in the propulsion battery pack. So we still needed to install anti-sway bars, fix the voltage leak , and just generally clean things up and load gear. We went up to Dietter's house at about six o'clock and decided who would work on what. I volunteered to make scrumptious burgers for all the workers. Jamie lent me a hand as Head Chef #2. With me on the job, we had perfect, black, charred burgers in no time. While Jamie and I were goofing off, everyone else was actually working. Tiffany and Ian discovered the cause of the voltage leak, which was a large crack in brand new battery #8. They spent quite a long time taking the batteries out, cleaning them, putting them back in, checking the voltage, and repeating the process. It took about four hours of work, but by the end of it we had a running EV. We went for a test ride down the middle road, and called it a night.
All right, back to today. We left on the boat at eight o'clock in the morning, then split up on the mainland. Dietter, Ansel, and Ian, riding in Dietter's F-250 and towing the EV, went up to Home Depot to find some much needed cable ties and metric hex nuts. Everyone else, traveling in the bus, went to Final Touch, where we picked up some new logos for the EV. We met back up at the Puffin Stop on Route 1 and headed towards New York. We duct taped my speakers to the top of my seat so all could hear the loud booming music. That went well until the battery in the speakers died, at which point we were forced to actually talk to each other, which was rough, but we managed. On Route 95 by the Wells exit, there was an accident. A large truck carrying potentially explosive chemicals overturned. Chemicals spilled all over the highway. There was a dump truck covering the highway with sand to soak up the chemicals. Anyway, it caused a traffic jam, and there was a detour through the town. Driving through Wells with our windows up and AC off, we saw a police sheriff going door to door, and Emmy called her cousin and discovered that five schools in the area were being evacuated.
Eventually we made it through, and had a fairly uneventful trip. The student navigators had a bit of trouble finding the motel once in Saratoga Springs. It is occasionally a good idea to make sure that the star on the map marks the place you want to get to, and not a random parking lot. Well, we got into the Robin Hood motel at around 10:45. It's about 11:30 now, and we have to wake up at 5:30, so we're getting ready to sleep.
-Emmett Hodder
Friday -May 13, 2005
Waking up at 5:00 am, we got ready, loaded up the mini bus, and headed to Saratoga Springs State Park. When we arrived at 6:45, we quickly set up in the almost empty parking lot. We sat in the big white tent (BWT) for the driver's meeting with some other competitors and all the volunteers for NESEA, while the director Nancy Hazard made a speech. We all thought that New York would be a lot warmer than Maine. We thought wrong. During the driver's meeting we were all freezing, in addition to being tired. After the meeting, we got to work. Ian and Ansel installed the anti-sway bars, and everyone else worked on our generator, and our presentation.
Allison Hodder, Nathan, Mellisa, and Alicia went to Dunkin' Donuts and brought back some brunch. I (Tiffany) Armour-All'ed the whole entire E-Van, inside and out! It was shining like Dietter's forehead! Then we checked out all the other cars and trucks, and met all kinds of people, familiar and unfamiliar. We went through a series of tests: technical, construction, weight, practicality, and a hill start. We impressed all of the examiners with our knowledge and obvious hard work put into the e-van. Nathan did the hill start, and mastered it with ease. We had dozens of people come to us and tell us how much they appreciated the quality of our work. With all the compliments, it really gave us a great feeling of accomplishment. We even got complimented on our matching VW shirts.
For lunch we had chili that was provided by NESEA. We prepared for our acceleration and braking test, and the cone test. We started the braking test with 7 people in the E-van. The examiner insisted that we lower our capacity,but Dietter made the point that we had one of the slowest vehicles, and we were not counting on getting great accelleration. We attempted the test with 7 people. We were told that we had to accelerate up to 20 mph, then slam on the brakes. We took our first try, with Emmy driving . Being the first time ever driving the E-Van, it was an interesting learning experience....we only got up to 15 MPH. So we backed up and tried it again. This time we got up to 17 mph. So we backed up and tried it again...this time we decided to decrease our load to two people, a driver and a navigator (Emmy and Alicia). They backed up again ,and accelerated up to 19 mph. With our competitors waiting for their turn, the judges told us it was okay. Everyone...and I mean everyone, was laughing. I think it made a long day a little bit more exciting for them. The van probably would have made it up to 20 mph if we had shifted into second gear! To Emmy's credit, the E-van is a very hard vehicle to drive, with no power steering and a standard transmission.
Next was the E-brake test. We had to Accelerate up to 20 mph, and pull the E-brake. Jamie volunteered for this test; with Alicia as co -pilot they attempted their first try.
They headed off and when they got to the stopping cone, Jamie pulled the e-brake ...but she forgot to take her foot off the accelerator. Attempt number two...performed perfectly....it was a team effort, Alicia pulled the e-brake while Jamie drove (shifting, and taking her foot off the accelerator once and for all). Dietter did the acceleration test with Ansel. The power of the e-van (without seven people, and someone more experienced in shifting) was impressive. With the front of the E-Van popped up with 120 beefy volts, it accelerated across the stopping line, making it in 10.7 seconds (over 1/8 of a mile). Last, but not least, was the cone test. Dietter and Ansel wildly zigzagged through the cones, knocking one out. With the second try they bombed through it with perfection! It was a good laugh. We sat on the sidelines and watched a few other cars go through. They were alot faster than us, but we had way more fun! I don't think I have ever seen Dietter so excited! We split up into two groups: Ian, Nathan, Alicia, Allison and I went to find the campground. The rest stayed back and prepared for our presentation. We took a big detour, due to yet another accident in the road. It took us 3 hours to find it and set up the tents!. It took about 15 minutes to get back, after we knew where we were!.When we arrived back at the big white tent at the park at 8:00, and watched the teams presentations. We presented last and showed our movie that the class of 2003 created. Everyone enjoyed it, and got complemented on our theme song! We then headed to the camp site, leaving Ben, Ansel, and Dietter behind to work on some technical difficulties (they will explain). We got to the campsite and went to bed. The guys showed up around 3 o'clock in the a.m, exhausted from workin' hard on the E-Van.
-Tiffany Wiles
Saturday -May 14, 2005.
Well, last night was an early night. Actually, not really. NESEA provided us with a dinner of lasagna, salad, bread, and an assortment of deserts. After dinner it was time for us to do team to team presentations where we got to hear how each team went about their vehicle creation process. We presented the video that was made on the making of the EV and then Ben did a great job explaining our solar array project. We were the last ones to present and ours, as usual, having music along with it woke everyone in the audience up a bit.
Earlier in the evening we experienced a problem with our charger. The GFI (ground fault interrupt) in our EV had to be disconnected in order for us to use the big charger that NESEA is providing for everyone, because if we didn't it would trip the charging process and the EV would not receive any charge. In the process of disconnecting the GFI we fried something in our charger so while we were waiting to hook up the EV to the giant generator we hooked up our generator and smelled an awful odor coming from our charger. Luckily we met some nice people from Washington State who let us borrow their digital charger. To make a long story short Ben, Ansel, and D were at the Tour De Sol parking lot site until 2:30 this morning hooking up the temporary charger.
This morning came very quickly and it seemed as though we had just fallen asleep when we were woken up at 7:00. I crawled out of our tent all askew, hair standing on end and trying to walk a straight line to the bathroom when I heard a voice coming out of the small two person tent...... it was D, "morning Alicia." I was still thinking to myself, "how can it be morning, that doesn't seem possible." I managed to uphold a short conversation about the charger and what needed to be done this morning to get the EV ready to go. He mentioned that we needed to be at the Big White Tent in the Saratoga Springs State Park at 8:00. I knew there was no way everyone would be ready by then so I very graciously said I would go along with Dietter and Ian to get to the driver's meeting which began at 8:00. I told D I would go along on only one condition, and that was if we could stop so I could get a large coffee to wake me up a bit. Of course there was no hassle in that because that was already a planned stopped for D especially.
After the driver's meeting Ian and I were the only ones around from our group so we became part of the team assistants group which was cool because we got these pretty spiffy t-shirts. We were assigned to go to the parking lot where the Autocross was going to be taking place later on at 5:00. We had to direct traffic, except while we were there, there was really no traffic so we just sat there. I felt in control cause my friend Phillippe gave me a radio so I could talk to people which was fantabulous.
Soon Jamie an Emmett arrived to relieve us of our duties. Today the Saratoga Springs Auto Show was taking place. At this event not only were the cars participating in the Tour De Sol on display, but so were a bunch of old and new cars. I had to pick my chin up off the ground a few times, once after seeing a Ferrari.
While our EV was on display we got a chance to talk to many people about our process and what we have done to make our car a zero emission vehicle. I have to say I think that our EV is more practical than a lot of the other electric vehicles that are here.
Finally at 5:00 we headed down to where the Autocross was taking place. We had been told some stories about previous Tour De Sols when Alex was the driver and were all ready for a good show. Nathan bravely took on the role of driver through a crazy course which included sharp turns going in and out of orange cones at the speed of which you could handle the vehicle without tipping it over.
There was a bit of a dress code in this event, you know they mean business when they tell you to put on your HELMET! During this event we had two runs through the course. On the first run Nathan did well in not tipping over the EV, although he experienced a little technical difficulty around one corner. He noticed when it was time to smash on the accelerator the EV was not increasing in speed, it was sort of should I say...coasting, but he made it to the finish line in something like 55 seconds. Emmett ran to the rescue to assess the acceleration issue and found that if he turned up the cut off point on the control (meaning he increased the amount of energy put out so that the EV could go faster), it would fix the problem. I know, your thinking faster on this swervy course? But yes, we needed to have more POWER. After our slight tune up Nathan attempted the run again hoping to at least get a time of 44 seconds. As we waited in suspense, listening to the screeching sounds of the EV as it flew like a jack rabbit around the corners and in and out of the cones,
Nathan nailed the accelerator and finished with a time of 43.6 seconds. Our goal had been met and the monster driver Nathan was heavily applauded. This event was an adrenaline rush for him and he just didn't want to end with two runs, so he went for a third run. The "fun run", as it was called, didn't end with as good of a time but in the end our EV was still in one piece.
After a wicked long day we packed up the truck to take it back to the charging station and then a crew of us headed back to camp while Ben, Jamie, and D stayed to hook up the EV.
Arriving back at the camp was a bit of a relief knowing that soon after we ate our delicious meal of hots dogs and chips, which were cooked by Tiffany and Ansel, we would be crawling into our cozy sleeping bags and drifting off into a deep deep sleep.
Until next time, your lovely journalist - Alicia L.
Sunday, Day Four
Today we woke up a little late, at 6:30 a.m. That was tough because it takes a half hour to get to Saratoga Springs State Park, which we had to get to by seven o clock for a drivers meeting. We made it there only fifteen minutes late.
Today's major event was the range event. The range event consists of having the teams drive courses until they run out of electricity or fuel. There were three courses, long, medium (14 miles), and short (4.35 miles). Alicia, Allison, Nathan, and I went to buy food and some fuel for the camp stove while the rest took part in the range event. Here are what people had to say about it.
Ben: Most teams chose their lightest people to drive and navigate to get the most possible mileage, but to show the practicality of our vehicle we filled her up with the maximum amount of passengers, 7 people.
Emmett: We chose to start out with two laps on the medium course, and then complete as many small laps as possible. At the end of the first lap, there was a burning smell, like a burnt clutch. It was decided by the students that it was in fact a burnt clutch. After the first lap, everyone except Jamie and I jumped out to lighten the load . About 2 miles into the second medium lap, Jamie and I started smelling the clutch again.
I looked back and a small amount of smoke was coming from the battery pack under the middle seat. We pulled over, turned off the main disconnect and opened up all of the doors and windows in the van, and Jamie called the rest of the team. We got out of the car and ran back about 300 yards to a group of Tour de Sol staff and told them what was going on. We went back to the EV with them. Jamie was ready with the fire extinguisher, while one of the staff members and I removed the seat covering the battery box and discovered that we had melted one of the lead terminals. It had liquified. In short order, however, we disconnected that battery, which reduced the total voltage from 108 volts to 102 volts.
We continued on the course after the repairs until the batteries died. Dietter was following the track course just in case we were having problems, so we hooked up the tow bar to the EV and towed it back to the finish line. Not the way we planned to have the day to go, but a successful (and resourceful) one nonetheless.
At the end of the event, we had a twenty one mile range. The EV has a range of fifty miles maximum. This involves traveling on an full charge, a single driver, and going slowly. We were weighed down even more than usual because we don't usually drive with a full load of people. This may be why we fell quite short of out fifty mile range.
Tonight we had a lot of spare time since we got back to the campsite around 1 o clock. We had plenty of time to organize our equipment, pack our belongings, and take HOT SHOWERS!!! Also, it gave Ansel, Nathan, Tiffany and Alicia plenty of time to prepare a great supper of beef, chicken and potatoes.
We had a debriefing around the campfire on the events that happened during the day and came up with ideas for the next Tour de Sol. Afterwards we started cleaning up after the meal and at 10:30 Emmett, Alicia and Dietter are going back to disconnect the charger, check on the batteries, and send this update. We are all looking forward to going to bed soon, for we have an early morning tomorrow.
May 16, 2005
Ansel- Today was our final day of the Tour de Sol, and a very eventful one at that. If you have ever heard of a monsoon, our tents were almost washed away in one last night around 1:00 in the morning. So after an almost routine night of sleep depravation, we awoke at 4:30 to break down camp which went surprisingly well due to peoples feeling good about the early start. Ben and I willingly volunteered ourselves to travel in ahead of the group to get briefed for the day's events. Dietter, Ben, and I left Monroe Lake State Park in search of the much needed caffeine boost at the nearby Dunkin Donuts. So we arrived and pulled up to the drive thru and we wait for the words " Welcome to Dunkin Donuts can I take your order" and what we got was something straight out of the middle east. It was the basic welcome but with an Indian accent. After the welcome we got a "I will be with you in a minute," which turned out to be optimistic. We waited about 5 minutes before we got to order, and what seemed like an eternity after that to receive our coffee and steak, egg and cheese sandwiches. When we pulled up to the window we found out the reason for the wait. There was only one man working, and the first thing he said to us as we came to the window, "Sorry, I am only but one man, " almost broke us out in laughter. It was the same line that Scotty, the engineer of Star Trek's starship Enterprise, would say when he was under fire to make the ship go faster. But here, a thick Indian accent substituted for Scotty's brogue, and the starship Dunkin Donuts substituted for the Enterprise. Guts busting, we drove into the dawn.
After the bizarre stop at Dunkin Donuts we made our way to the Tour de Soul parking lot for the 6:00 drivers meeting. There we learned the logistics of the day and hitched up the E-Van to the Green Monster, our Ford F-250 tow vehicle, which was running on bio-diesel. If you don't already know our K&W charger failed and we borrowed a charger from the Western Washington University Hybrid Team, so we returned that to them. We had installed plugs on their cords to be compatible with our system, so Ben and I put the original plugs back on the cords. Soon after that we departed the parking lot that had been like a home for the past four days and made out thirty four mile journey to the New York State Capital, Albany.
Ben- The ride to Albany was pretty uneventful. Ansel, D and I towed the electric vehicle, listened to music, and had a chat with Nathan over the radio. With unhealthily levels of caffeine in our system we hit the outskirts of Albany. It was great to see the faces of people with all these alternative fueled vehicles either driving into the capitol or being towed. The bus dropped off Allison, Emmett and Jamie, and the truck pulled into a parking lot across the street from the Capital plaza in Albany. We unhitched the E.V., and then because there wasn't enough room in the E.V. Ansel and I walked into the plaza. It was a very interesting space. There were two reflecting pools in the middle with fountains and one had a black abstract sculpture. There were other very interesting sculptures. All along the reflecting pools which had fountains there were benches. Enclosing this plaza where tall triangular buildings and then there was a very interesting one, which was called "The Egg." It was a building made of cement; at the base it was a cylinder and on the top of that cylinder there was a giant egg-shaped structure that could have been Dr. Evil's lair. It was an eye-catching plaza. We set up our van and display at the far end of the plaza. We explained our vehicle, it's components, and our plans for the future to many different people. Some of the observers were state employes and some were motorcyclists, that were protesting a new helmet law. Though there may not have been tons of people there, the people who were there were very interested and engaged. This was a great place for showing people the use and practicality of electric vehicles in our polluted world.
Ansel- Meeting and shaking the hand of a governor for some people is a big deal but, today I really didn't sweat it to much. While I sat up infront of the podium i had some interesting conversations with a girl from Western Washington University (the team we borrowed the charger from) and the teacher from St. Marks high school from Mass. Finally over the loud speakers we heard "Ladies and gentlemen the governor of New York George Pataki." I sat there thinking to myself "wow, I am going to be meeting the Governor of New York, probably the most well known state in the whole world." So they called the six of us award recipients up to the podium and I was by far the scruffiest looking one of them, all with the beard I am trying to grow and my VW Mechanic's shirt. D had asked me beforehand if I wanted to switch my shirt for one without mustard stains on the front, and although I had resisted at first, now I was happy that I had taken him up on his offer. Governor Pataki shook my hand (twice) and I returned to my esteemed EV team with trophy in hand. The award we won, First Place for Renewability, was for our excellent work on our solar panels, which provide 100% of the electricity that the EV uses (and then some). Jumping with joy we celebrated that night with pizza and soda galore at Ben's sister Kim's house in Woolwich Maine.
Ben- As we lay our heads on our pillows we thought about the many things that had gone wrong on our vehicle like the charger frying, a battery terminal melting down and our borrowed meter not working. With any of those things we could have packed our bags and gone home, but we didn't, we stayed up until all hours of the morning and got things fixed. We all felt great about what we had done and accomplished and that we never backed down to a task and that we overcame all the obstacles that were thrown at us.