KMGH Denver will now be able to take its sunny weather forecasts to the bank, literally.
The station has rolled out a broadcast TV first--a solar-powered TV weather radar system.
The station’s new Doppler radar has a 2-kilowatt photovoltaic array to convert sunlight into electricity. “We calculated the annual power requirements of the radar unit and designed the solar panels to be large enough to cover the radar’s annual electric needs and more,” says John Thornton, project engineer with the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (which worked with KMGH on the project).
He says any additional energy produced by the solar panels is transferred back into the Xcel Energy power grid.
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