Patrick Hinton with NessCampbell Crane, left, guides a box of 31 solar panels gently down onto the roof of the Aviation Pavilion as Ian Scott with A&R Solar stands ready to help at the Museum of Flight on Wednesday. When completed, there will be 1,863 individual panels installed on the roof of the Pavilion, providing 1.08 megawatts of power that will power the museum’s West Campus. (Jennifer Buchanan / The Seattle Times)
Patrick Hinton with NessCampbell Crane, left, guides a box of 31 solar panels gently down onto the roof of the Aviation Pavilion as Ian Scott with A&R Solar stands ready to help at the Museum of Flight on Wednesday. When completed, there will be 1,863 individual panels installed on the roof of the Pavilion, providing 1.08 megawatts of power that will power the museum’s West Campus. (Jennifer Buchanan / The Seattle Times)
Seattle may not be known for sunny days, but the Museum of Flight is looking to soak up every sweet ray this city gets as the West Campus, which includes the Space Gallery and the Aviation Pavilion, soars toward going 100% solar.
A towering crane hoisted 1,863 solar panels onto the roof of the museum’s Aviation Pavilion this week — a surface the size of more than two football fields. Each panel weighs about 60 pounds, said Jen Olson, marketing director at A&R Solar, which is installing the panels. It will take about two months for the new panels to be installed and hooked to the building’s power grid.
Sunlight is sparse and short-lived around here in winter, but Olson said the solar panels will provide all of the West Campus’ energy, 1.08 megawatts, year-round through a process called metering.
In the summer, when the sun rises early and hangs out until 10 p.m., the solar panels will produce so much energy that the museum won’t be able to use it all.
“The system is overproducing what the buildings need at that point,” Olson said.
That means the excess energy gets dispersed through the grid to power neighboring buildings. In return, the museum gets credits on its energy bill, which it can rely on when the days get shorter and the gloom sets in.
The panels are manufactured in Washington by Silfab, a company that designs them specifically for the North American environment.
The project will cost just over $4 million, but $1.2 million of that is funded by the Washington State Department of Commerce through the Climate Commitment Act, according to the museum. In addition to sustainable energy, the law supports pollution reduction, jobs and public health.
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