by Bruce B. Lindsay, PE, CEM, ASHRAE Life Member
For five years, I have driven down Sarno Road in Melbourne, Florida, and have seen the solar photovoltaic (PV) towers behind the American Muscle Car Museum parking lot walls, though I had never truly known the extent of the facility’s design. In October 2021, I attended a private event at the museum and was simply amazed by the collection. I had the privilege of interviewing its owner, Mark Pieloch, and was allocated 15 minutes for a phone call and sent him a list of questions in advance—the call lasted 66 minutes. It was clear Mr. Pieloch was extremely hands-on in its design and very proud of his collection and the museum, which was designed and built to run on 100% renewable energy.
American Muscle Car Museum in Melbourne, Florida.
Museums are built to preserve valuable artwork and historical objects from natural disasters and must be designed and constructed to ensure that their contents are secure and will not deteriorate due to environmental conditions. Floods, earthquakes, hurricanes and wildfires threaten to destroy priceless artifacts. As engineers, we are taught to look at best- and worst-case scenarios and address long-term grid outages, lack of spare parts for critical equipment, ultraviolet (UV) damage, mold, dust and rust.
Mark Pieloch, serial entrepreneur, was raised in a typical blue-collar family in Massachusetts and developed a love for cars, especially high-performance muscle cars. As he grew and sold businesses in the pharmaceutical industry, he started to collect cars, his “toys,” and needed a place to safely store the growing collection. A location was chosen in central Florida, in Hurricane Alley, and construction of the facility took place in 2015 and 2016 in Melbourne, Florida. The biggest concern was flooding, so 42 acres (17 hectares) of high ground was acquired for the project. Mr. Pieloch demanded that the facility, measuring 123,000 ft2 (11 427 m2) in size, could survive a category 5+ hurricane. The steel-reinforced concrete block structure could withstand hurricane winds of 300 mph (483 kmh). Windows were rated to withstand winds of 225 mph (362 kmh), and the garage doors—the weak link—were rated to withstand 160 mph (258 kmh). Resiliency on steroids!
Reinforced concrete block construction of the museum in 2015.
The Museum (www.americanmusclecarmuseum.org) has 380+ new and vintage automobiles, of which fifty are one-of-a-kind, irreplaceable and priceless. It is located less than 7 miles from the Atlantic Ocean, and the marine environment threatens every metal surface in the county and was a critical issue in the preservation of the collection.
In Melbourne, the design conditions are 92℉ (33℃) for dry-bulb temperature and 80℉ (26℃) for wet-bulb temperature. Humidity rules, but comfort was not the primary factor in designing the air conditioning system. The maximum occupancy is 350 people, but the museum sits empty 95% of the time. So, the question is—how do you prevent metal cars from rusting in Florida? You control the relative humidity (RH) to 35%. The owner chose to decouple temperature and humidity in the design of the museum. Two 30-ton (105 kW) dehumidifiers to maintain RH at 35% were installed, as were 140-ton (492 kW) air conditioning units for temperature control (a typical building would have needed a 300-ton [1055 kW] system). If the units cannot sufficiently maintain a temperature of 75℉ (24℃), the facility is designed to allow the temperature to float up. Mr. Pieloch insisted that the air conditioning units be identical so that if one failed and parts were not available, the other units could be cannibalized.
Interior lighting of the museum while in conservation mode.
You do not want to rely on diesel-fueled emergency generators for an extended power outage as fuel deliveries may not be dependable, especially for a private facility; solar PV was the preferred option for this project. The museum has 1,200 solar panels on 40 towers that produce 390 kW of energy. The facility is net metered, and excess electricity is placed on the grid. The facility has to pay demand charges, so the overall economics of solar power are very poor. Battery storage was considered for the facility and dismissed due to high costs. The towers are equipped with lightning protection systems, but they still lose 2 to 3 inverters each year; the towers are also designed to withstand 300 mph winds.
The building was highly insulated and sealed. The temperature rise with power off is 1℉/day. If a major storm is forecast, the building would be cooled to 70℉, and it would float for several days. The owner is looking to see if the solar PV could be wired to power just the dehumidifiers during an extended power outage and RH would be maintained.
LED lighting was installed throughout the facility, with special pendant LED lighting installed above the cars in the display area. These provide 80 lumens on the car surface, and a color rendering index of 94% ensures that visitors can distinguish the slight nuances of black, midnight blue and royal blue in car finishes.
Fundraising events in the showroom, showcasing a collection of Ford GTs.
The car collection poses an indoor air quality problem. All the cars have some gasoline in their tanks to keep the fuel pumps immersed and avoid problems with seals drying. Some cars are occasionally operated with engine emissions emitting into the space. The facility has carbon monoxide (CO) and CO2 sensors for ventilation control. All the air handling units are equipped with HEPA filters, which eliminates dust on the vehicles and allows the cars to be washed once per year during their annual inspection.
In 2017, Hurricane Irma hit central Florida, and the 42-acre site on which the museum sits was offered as a staging area for the local electric utility for recovery operations. Sixteen hundred utility personnel and their fleet of equipment spent 16 days onsite. Not only was the facility up and running, but it was also able to support the entire county to restore power.
The local electric utility set-up for Hurricane Irma recovery operations in the museum’s staging area.
In 2021, the City of Melbourne, Florida, developed its Clean Energy plan to be carbon neutral by 2035. It relied heavily on partnering with its local utility to procure solar power from a utility scale solar farm. The city also converted streetlights to LED, upgraded interior lighting to LED and procured electric vehicles as conventional gasoline and diesel vehicles were retired. The city focused on encouraging residents and community organizations to go green and established a recognition program for pioneers in the community. The city bestowed its first Clean Energy Award to the American Muscle Car Museum in 2022, and the plaque and project description are displayed prominently in the museum showroom so as to inspire Melbourne residents and the community to embrace solar PV, energy efficiency, smart controls, advanced lighting and EVs. At the award ceremony, Mr. Pieloch stated that muscle cars have a terrible carbon footprint. He felt he had to address this and that he was obligated to go 100% renewable energy on the building.
Melbourne Mayor Paul Alfrey and the Beautification and Energy Efficiency Board presenting the Clean Energy Award to Tatiana and Mark Pieloch.
The City of Melbourne did not have staff with extensive knowledge of clean energy technologies nor time to review project qualifications. The Beautification and Energy Efficiency Board in Melbourne identified candidates and developed information packages on each project. Technical merits were reviewed by four local organizations—the ASHRAE Space Coast Section, AEE Sunshine Chapter, USGBC Brevard and Drive Electric Florida. These organizations made recommendations on recognizing the project with a Clean Energy Award.
The ASHRAE Space Coast Section also decided to conduct an energy audit and obtained two years of utility data from the museum. Energy Star Portfolio Manager and ASHRAE Building Energy Quotient (Building EQ) were used to calculate the energy utilization index and provide a simple score. Unfortunately, there is not sufficient building data on museums available to conduct a valid comparison, but car dealerships—which bear a striking resemblance to the museum—are in the database. The median car dealership has an energy use intensity (EUI) of 124, with an annual energy cost of $334,500 generating 1,753 metric tons of CO2. The Energy Star and Building EQ studies showed that the museum has an EUI of 6 and 3, respectively, annual energy costs of $18,800 and generated 94 tons of CO2. The Building EQ performance rating was a 2, which is considered almost zero net energy, reflecting the 92.8% of electricity consumed in the museum that was produced by solar PV.
Bruce Lindsay is the Thermal Energy Storage Business Development Team Leader in North America for Trane Technologies and the ASHRAE Space Coast Section President.
Photo credit: The American Muscle Car Museum.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author would like to acknowledge the extensive discussions and review by Mr. Pieloch and his commitment to clean energy. He also wants to acknowledge the support of City of Melbourne staff (Ralph Reigelsperger, Jennifer Wilster, and Megan Selva) and AEE, ASHRAE, USGBC and Drive Electric Florida area leaders (Kalvin Kwan, John Constantinide, Kimberly Newton, and Brenna Kaminski).