Photos available: Maine Coast Guard crews going green

Photo of Coast Guard housing officer showing wood pellets to student

In this photo released by the U.S. Coast Guard, Kevin LeClair, left, a Coast Guard housing officer, shows wood pellets to 8th grade, science students from Tremont Consolidated School in Bass Harbor, Maine, while on a field trip to Coast Guard Housing in Southwest Harbor, Maine, Wednesday, March 13, 2010. The goal of the field trip was to show the students how alternative energy sources are being utilized in Coast Guard housing facilities including: a biosolar pellet burner/boiler, solar thermal water tubes, photovoltaic panels, and the potential to harness wind energy. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Etta Smith.

Photo of students listening to Coast Guard member

In this photo released by the U.S. Coast Guard, Lt. Ashly Thomas, right, of the Southwest Harbor Sector Field Office, talks with 8th grade, science students from Tremont Consolidated School in Bass Harbor, Maine, about 'green' energy while the students are on a field trip to Coast Guard Housing in Southwest Harbor, Maine, Wednesday, March 13, 2010. The goal of the field trip was to show the students how alternative energy sources are being utilized in Coast Guard housing facilities including: a biosolar pellet burner/boiler, solar thermal water tubes, photovoltaic panels and the potential to harness wind energy. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Etta Smith

SOUTHWEST HARBOR, Maine — In honor of Earth Day, Coast Guard crews in Southwest Harbor, Maine, will demonstrate renewable energy resources being utilized at the unit, April 21, 2010.

Members of the Coast Guard Sector Field Office in Southwest Harbor will host an open house for 20 students from the College of the Atlantic, who are studying the physics and mathematics of sustainable energy, to observe how renewable energy sources have been implemented in a Coast Guard-owned housing unit.

Coast Guard members in Maine have been working to implement ‘greener’ energy resources that capitalize on the benefits of renewable energy resources including wind energy, photovoltaic cell technology, solar thermal panels, and wood pellet burners.

“From an economic security perspective, the price of wood pellets has remained stable for the past several years, whereas the price of #2 heating oil has fluctuated substantially,” said Capt. James McPherson, commander, Coast Guard Sector Northern New England.

With funding from the Coast Guard Innovation Program, a team of Coast Guard personnel in Southwest Harbor researched, purchased, and installed a pellet burner, solar thermal tubes and photovoltaic panels which have created a carbon neutral duplex housing unit (two, single family homes) that is completely severed from the use of 2,300 gallons of fuel oil a year and accounts for more than $5,000 in energy savings annually.

By demonstrating a fully functional ‘net-zero, model green home’ Sector Northern New England hopes these initiatives will serve as an example for other units in the Coast Guard throughout the country to follow.

Editor’s note: Media interested in covering either of these events should contact Coast Guard Public Affairs at 617-223-8515.

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