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TOOELE — The U.S. military made a big move into renewable energy Friday with the groundbreaking for a utility-sized project at Tooele Army Depot.
A celebratory fanfare with gushes of awe and respect dominated the event.
A glistening PowerDish standing 21 feet tall was one reason for the rush of excitement, and the presence of Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was the other.
Depot commander Col. Chris Mohan told the small crowd that the last time a chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff visited the 70-year-old military installation tucked away amid the grasslands south of Tooele was in the 1940s. That chairman was Dwight D. Eisenhower, before he became president of the United States.
"The bar has been set pretty high," Mohan said.
Dempsey, flanked by an entourage of military officers and assistants, was affable and unassuming under the hot August sun, taking sips from a bottle of water as he milled through the crowd.
The Army will build the 1.5-megawatt Stirling Solar Array, Renewable Energy Project -- a large-scale solar farm -- on a 15-acre site at the depot.
"We're on a campaign of learning, in particular related to renewable energy," Gen. Dempsey said.
He said the goal is 1 GW of energy from each branch of the military by 2025. That's enough to produce energy for 750,000 homes. Gen. Dempsey said it exemplifies the innovative and new direction the military has to embrace to meet the needs of the country.
"This is a glimpse, just a glimpse of the future," he said.
A large solar farm like the one that officials broke ground on is also important for national security. It will help wean military installations off the electrical grid as much as possible, and Tooele Army Depot is marching quickly toward the goal of being one of 16 Army commands in the country to become "net zero," or practically off the grid.
"We just need to be better, more efficient, better stewards of the nation's resources," Gen. Dempsey said. "And if we can figure out how to use this in Afghanistan and Iraq and wherever else we find ourselves, we are going to be safer."
- Relocated to Ogden from Washington state in the spring.
- Went from 12 to 80 employees within the past few months, and plans to add more.
- First large-scale project of this kind - Tooele Army Depot.
- Previously used the technology in a commercial dairy in Arizona and a Frito-Lay plant.
Infinia, an Ogden-based company, will plant 430 PowerDishes, 22 feet in diameter, on 15 acres of vacant land at the depot. The panels on each of the units concentrate the sunshine onto a generator, where the power is created. Every PowerDish in the array tracks the sun all day long.
The $9.6 million project will generate 1.5 MW, that's enough energy to power 500 homes.
Katherine Hammack, assistant secretary of the Army said, "We view this as an opportunity to develop energy security for the military, but also to develop energy security for this local area."
The solar array should be generating power by next March or April.
When he is asked to speak at events like Friday's, Dempsey said he looks for important historical milestones that happened on that particular day in history. He said it was worth noting that on Aug. 17, 1915, Charles Kettering invented the electric automobile starter and with his riches went on to establish a cancer center and patented the technology for an incubator for premature infants.
That combination of trust in ingenuity and generosity found in the American spirit is what Dempsey said inspires his faith in the United States and is his answer when probed if the country is on the decline, or an incline.
"As long as we got the people right, this country's going to be fine," he said.
