Renewable Energy Charging Station Evolving from Bayview Park to Knight Club

As part of the SEECS’s community service project, the initial goal of the project was to create a replicable aesthetically pleasing attraction using renewable energy that provides a charging station for a minimum of two mobile devices, lighting, and capable of connecting to the grid at Bayview Park, Erie, PA. Three potential designs, utilizing different types of renewable energy resources, solar, mechanical, and wind, were proposed. The poster will outline the basic design aspects and the pros and cons of each design.

The Bayview park is within the region of a bigger community development, the OWB (Our West Bayfront). The delay of the masterplan of OWB led to the implementation of our project being in limbo. Eventually we dropped the Bayview park as our location due to the stakeholders not knowing what they wanted and a lack of communication with them. We then decided to install a renewable energy station at our local student-run café, the Knight Club, to reduce their electricity and help Gannon to Go Green. We got rid of the mechanical aspect of our project and decided to go with a combination of solar and wind energy as our power sources. The reason for going with wind and solar both is due to the fact that Erie is a very windy city and we would generate a lot of energy using a wind turbine, and solar energy because there is a decent amount of sunshine in Erie as well and that would supplement the power generated by wind. Originally, we were looking at a smaller power station to just power a couple outlets, but now we are going to make a renewable energy station that will reduce the total energy bill of the Knight Club by at least 10%. The poster will outline the design selection of the hybrid solar wind renewable power station. We will also present our effort of reaching out to other scholarship and funding opportunities around campus not only to apply for additional funding but also raise more awareness of renewable energy installation on campus. We hope to have our design finalized and begin construction by the end of the semester.