COLUMN // HISTORY
Jimmy Carter’s Solar Panels Remembered
The renewable energy demonstration for the White House needed two University of Connecticut engineers to optimize the system.
Written by Lee S. Langston
WHEN JIMMY CARTER RAN FOR THE PRESIDENCY in 1976, he portrayed himself as a peanut farmer, which he was. But prior to taking over the family business, he served in the United States Navy and had trained in nuclear power plant operations with an eye toward working on the Navy’s second nuclear submarine.
The experience instilled in Carter both a logical and engineeringly oriented mindset as well as an abiding interest in advanced energy. Carter, who died in December at the age of 100, was perhaps the first U.S. president to actively advocate the direct use of solar energy to reduce the use of fossil fuels. And in 1979, as the nation he led was wracked by an energy crisis due to disruptions in the global petroleum industry, Carter led by example and requested the installation of a solar-heated, hot water system (and a wood stove) at the White House.
At a June 20, 1979, ceremony atop the White House roof, Carter declared, “No one can ever embargo the sun or interrupt its delivery to us.”
The sunlight-collecting panels Carter ordered have, through years of changing terminology, become conflated with the sorts of photovoltaic panels that have become increasingly commonplace. In the late 1970s, however, PV cells were both inefficient and expensive, suitable only for uses where the amount of electricity needed was minimal (such as pocket calculators) or where no other energy source was available, as was the case for Earth-orbiting satellites.
President Carter dedicating the solar-thermal panels on the roof of the White House in 1979. Photo courtesy: Jimmy Carter Presidential Library
Carter’s panels didn’t make electricity, but rather heated water for domestic use. Such solar hot water systems have been in use since the 19th century; in the 1970s, they were referred to as “solar collectors” and were manufactured using state-of-the-art technology by a wide variety of companies.
All those companies and their competing claims led to consumer confusion. At the University of Connecticut in Storrs, mechanical engineering professor Wallace Bowley formed an energy center to serve as an official solar collector evaluation test facility to assess each manufacturer’s system. As a faculty member, I was part of the UConn Energy Center, along with other professors, staff, and a group of engineering students.
Two UConn Energy Center members, David Jackson, P.E., head of solar collector testing, and my graduate student, Michael Boyle, made a 1979 journey to Washington, D.C., to “balance” the just-installed, roof-mounted four banks of eight solar collectors.
Today, Jackson, is vice president and chief mechanical engineer at the engineering firm, Fuss & O’Neil in New Haven. Shortly after Carter’s death, he gave me this short account of his and Boyle’s 1979 White House visit:
“Our testing group and other involvement in state incentive programs made us known to the installing contractor who retained us to balance the installed system. These days this activity would be called ‘commissioning.’ The contractor was obliged to provide the balancing service as part of their agreement with the Feds. UConn did not provide the solar collectors and was not involved with the installation. We were asked to do the balancing after the installation was complete.
“No one can ever embargo the sun or interrupt its delivery to us,” Carter declared.
“Mike Boyle and I traveled to D.C. and conducted the balancing. The system was operating but we identified and corrected (or suggested corrections) for a few things. We noted that the liquid flow rate was lower than normal (but still O.K.) and was caused by the use of spring check valves instead of swing checks. A lot of the available pump head was used up to open the spring checks, resulting in less than the anticipated flow rate. While the collector flow was a bit low, the collectors were producing heat for the building’s domestic hot water system (for the Oval Office dining room) at what we considered an acceptable level.
“Another thing we corrected was adding distilled water to the interstitial space provided in the double-walled heat exchanger. The purpose of the double-wall design was to prevent migration of collector fluid (propylene glycol, as I recall) into the domestic water or visa-versa. The distilled water would be displaced if there were a crack in the heat exchanger tubing. If this happened the distilled water would be forced out and provide indication of the failure.
“What we noticed was the distilled water level was low or absent. We topped it off using a big syringe, to the apparent horror of the Secret Service guy that was our chaperone. I assured him we were adding distilled water to a place where it should be, and we offered to drink some if that would help. That tense moment passed, and the performance of the heat exchanger improved by the filling of the interstitial space with the distilled water.”
President Jimmy Carter showing off the “solar system” on the White House roof. Decades later, the collectors were reinstalled at Carter’s library in Atlanta. Photo courtesy: Jimmy Carter Presidential Library
The solar collectors were a small part of Carter’s renewable energy plan. According to the United Press International account of Carter’s rooftop ceremony, “The President's solar power plan calls for the nation to obtain 20 percent of its energy from solar power and other renewable sources by the year 2000. These sources include wind, water, wood, and gasohol.”
Those plans were not continued in the administration of Ronald Reagan, who defeated Carter in 1980. And after operating for several years, the solar collectors were removed during White House roof repairs in 1986 and never reinstalled.
However, the College of Engineering at the University of Connecticut continues to be proud of the small part we played in the start of the direct use of solar energy at the White House, supporting the foresight of the late President, a trained engineer.
Lee S. Langston is professor emeritus in the mechanical engineering department at the University of Connecticut at Storrs.
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