Research is behind the Kentucky Ag Heritage Center's sustainable design

Special to KAN

The Kentucky Agriculture Heritage Center has taken another step toward breaking ground on the sustainable facility set to showcase Kentucky's agricultural past, present and future. In June, the Belcan design team behind the Center's sustainable focus began taking readings from the wind tower set to monitor the potential for wind power at the site.

"It is exciting to be at this stage in the development," said Mike Pillman, a Belcan architect working on the Center project. "Green design is a whole new venture for Belcan. We work with a myriad of industries internationally, but it is exciting to be moving in this direction with a project here in Kentucky."

Belcan has been working with the KAHC Board for over two years on the design and the development of this historic site. The first step in the process was to take the ideas of the Board and leaders in the agriculture community and bring them together in a conceptual design. As a leader in cutting edge technology, Belcan's design team saw the potential to incorporate green design as the core of the project.

"Agriculture at its core is about sustainability and living off the land," said Virginia Flanagan, the Executive Director of the KAHC. "Belcan tied these basic agriculture concepts to the focus of the design, and the Board saw the potential for creating a one of a kind sustainable Center to showcase Kentucky agriculture."

The Belcan team knew that in designing a facility of this scale it wouldn't be possible for a single source of renewable energy to power the entire operation, so they decided to take the resources available at the site and pull them together.
Belcan is partnering with Dovetail, a firm based out of Athens, Ohio, to measure the available wind power at the site of the Center.  A monitoring tower was installed by the Belcan and Dovetail teams in early spring, and over the last few months the monitors have been gathering wind, temperature, and other useful data from the site.

"What we are doing at this phase is showing everyone how to get data off the wind tower," said Daniel Young of Dovetail when the team met in late June.  "What this tower is doing  is measuring wind speed at different heights and temperature and wind direction so that we can take that and  take it back to the office so we can analyze it and see what kind of energy we have stored here on the site in the form of wind."

The hope from Belcan and Dovetail is that there will be enough wind to warrant having large scale wind turbines on the site to provide a strong source of renewable energy. Wind turbines, along with solar power and geothermal energy, are the trifecta the Belcan engineers are betting on to make the Center's facilities not only self sustaining, but hopefully producing enough energy in the future to feed back into the grid.

"I think that is really great for the state of Kentucky to showcase green technology and the potential for renewable energy,:  said Beth Hunter, Belcan's Certified LEED architect.  "I think when you can actually showcase green design and speak to the community, advertise for sustainability;  it is a great way to reach out show you care about the environment."

The Kentucky Agricultural Council's Agri-Energy Committee held their June meeting at the KAHC headquarters in Harrodsburg on the day the Belcan team was on location downloading the first round of data from the wind tower monitors. KAHC Board members and Belcan engineers attended the committee meeting and were given an opportunity to share with the committee the green design plans for the Center and the progress being made on the wind and other renewable energy research at the site location.
 

"We want people in the state to realize that the Kentucky Agriculture Heritage Center is much more than just a building," explained Flanagan. "What we are working towards is creating a sustainable center that incorporates the available resources of the land to power the operations, while also conserving the natural resources that are needed to make this a working farm."

Top: Daniel Young of Dovetail, left, and Mike Pillman of Belcan gather data from the wind tower monitors. (Kara Keeton photo)

Right: Mike Pillman checks the wind tower data as it enters the laptop. (Kara Keeton photo)

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