Solar Energy and Green Ideas thread
I have been wanting to learn about viable solar energy options for homeowners for the longest time. The furthest I got was when I heard it cost around $50,000 to set up the average house for a solar energy installation.
I don't know about you folks out there, but I just don't have that kind of money lying around. I understand rebates help to bring costs down, but it seems they have discontinued the rebate program for now.
I feel fuel and energy prices will only keep going higher, and smart citizens will eventually find alternatives. Well, I want to be one of the smart ones. I'm sick of dumping my hard-earned income on fuel costs.
Therefore, I thought I would set up a thread dedicated to discussing solar energy and green building options. Let's try to get a perspective if it really is feasible for the average homeowner. Any info or comments are welcome here. I will try to post links to some informative sites if I get a chance.
As with the penny savers thread, if this develops enough interest, I could put it all together in its own forum.
Meanwhile, feel free to post your own info, if anyone out there has tried to do this.
Also, if there are any contractors or people out there involved in setting this type of system up for homeowners, feel free to promote your company here. Tell us a little about what you do, and where you see the industry is headed.
It would be nice to see people become more knowledgable, and eventually help to decrease the US demand for fuel. Let's see what happens.
2 large solar plants planned in California
Two Large Solar Plants Planned in California
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/...s/solar600.jpg Steve Marcus/Reuters
Air Force Col. Dave Belote (left) and Eric Vanderleest, a technician for SunPower, walk through an array of solar panels at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. SunPower is one of two companies that plan to build solar power plants in California that are 10 times larger than any currently in service. By MATTHEW L. WALD
Published: August 14, 2008
Companies will build two solar power plants in California that together will put out more than 12 times as much electricity as the largest such plant today, the latest indication that solar energy is starting to achieve significant scale.
The plants will cover 12.5 square miles of central California with solar panels, and in the middle of a sunny day will generate about 800 megawatts of power, roughly equal to the size of a large coal-burning power plant or a small nuclear plant. A megawatt is enough power to run a large Wal-Mart store.
The power will be sold to Pacific Gas & Electric, which is under a state mandate to get 20 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2010. The utility said that it expected the new plants, which will use photovoltaic technology to turn sunlight directly into electricity, to be competitive with other renewable energy sources, including wind turbines and solar thermal plants, which use the sun’s heat to boil water.
“These market-leading projects we have in California are something that can be extrapolated around the world,” Jennifer Zerwer, a spokeswoman for the utility, said. “It’s a milestone.”
Though the California installations will generate 800 megawatts at times when the sun is shining brightly, they will operate for fewer hours of the year than a coal or nuclear plant would and so will produce a third or less as much total electricity.
OptiSolar, a company that has just begun making a type of solar panel with a thin film of active material, will install 550 megawatts in San Luis Obispo County. The SunPower Corporation, which uses silicon-crystal technology, will build about 250 megawatts at a different location in the same county.
The scale is a leap forward. Thomas H. Werner, the chairman of SunPower, said that the 250 megawatts his company would build was as much solar photovoltaic capacity as was installed worldwide last year.
“If you’re going to make a difference, you’ve got to do it big,” said Randy Goldstein, the chief executive of OptiSolar. The scale of the two plants will “bring a new paradigm to bear” for the industry, he said.
At 800 megawatts total, the new plants will greatly exceed the scale of previous solar installations. The largest photovoltaic installation in the United States, 14 megawatts, is at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, using SunPower panels. Spain has a 23-megawatt plant, and Germany is building one of 40 megawatts. A recently built plant that uses mirrors to concentrate sunlight, called Nevada Solar One, can produce 64 megawatts of power.
Solar power remains expensive compared with making electricity from coal or natural gas, but it is bounding ahead, driven by quotas set by the states. California’s 20 percent renewable standard is one of the toughest, and companies there are afraid they will miss a deadline in 2010. Pacific Gas & Electric expects that when the new plants are completed, its total will rise to 24 percent, but not until 2013.
Both plants require numerous permits, and plans could still go awry. The companies involved said they expected that building gargantuan plants would achieve economies of scale in the cost of design, installation and connection to the electric grid.
The companies said they were forbidden by contract terms to talk about price, and a spokeswoman for Pacific Gas & Electric said her company was trying to obtain the best possible deal for ratepayers by not telling other suppliers of renewable energy what it was willing to pay. But all three companies said the costs would be much lower than photovoltaic installations of the past.
SunPower’s panels are mounted at a 20-degree angle, facing south, and pivot from west to east over the course of the day to face the sun. OptiSolar’s are installed at a fixed angle. They are larger and less efficient, but also much less costly, so the cost per watt of energy is similar, company executives said.
Both are good at producing power at a time of day when the prices tend to be high, in the afternoon.
Neither approaches the economy of fossil-fuel burning plants, said Ms. Zerwer, the spokeswoman for Pacific Gas & Electric. But they will be competitive with wind power and with power from solar thermal plants, which are equipped with mirrors that use the sun’s heat to boil water into steam. And prices will fall, she predicted.
Her company, she said, was “going to contribute to the virtuous cycle of technology innovation and lower unit manufacturing cost, by purchasing on such a scale.”
Drew Univ.'s new 'green' dorm a first for colleges in New Jersey
Drew Univ.'s new 'green' dorm a first for colleges in New Jersey
Building constructed to meet requirements as eco-friendly space
by laura bruno • daily record • January 26, 2009 MADISON -- Drew University's first new residence hall in 34 years was open less than 24 hours by Sunday afternoon, but students had already christened it.
In the suite Neal Day and Tom Maloney share with two other roommates, two pizza boxes were on the floor and empty potato chip bags were stuffed into the garbage pail. There was still some leftover pizza Sunday, but when the guys go to throw out their garbage they'll be expected to trash the cardboard box separately in a paper and cardboard recycling bin.
Drew has done its part to make the building environmentally friendly; now students are expected to do their part.
This weekend, the $15 million McLendon Hall opened, expected to be the first "green" college dorm in New Jersey. The building, which will eventually house 159 undergraduates, was built to meet LEED certification (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), a nationally recognized standard developed by the U.S. Green Building Council. Some finishing touches are still required, but once completed, Drew's dorm will be the eighth in the country to be certified in the council's "green" standards.
Conserving energy
Lights dim in hallways when no one is there. There is reduced water flow in everything from shower heads to water fountains. The linoleum floors are made of linseed oil and require only a damp mop rather than harsh chemicals or wax for cleaning. And a geothermal heating and cooling system keeps the water temperature stabilized at 55 degrees so that it takes less energy to heat or cool it.
While all those environmentally friendly touches sounded good to Day and Maloney, what most impressed them and others moving in Sunday was the size of the rooms and having a sink in their bedrooms. The rooms in McLendon are all four- and six-person suites with a common room and two-person bedrooms.
Easy to recycle
"It's awesome, the room is huge, it's a lot bigger than I thought," said Maloney, 21, a junior from Phoenix, Az. "The rooms are clean and they even smell good, there's no 30-year-old odor."
Maloney does like that the university has clearly labeled separate garbage stations, he said, making it easy to recycle plastics, glass and paper products.
"Students who live here will be expected to be advocates of the environment, said Mike Kopas, Drew's special projects director. "We hope they will really try to set an example."
Drew, like many colleges around the country, is promoting an eco-friendly campus to incoming students who increasingly judge these institutions on their carbon footprint. Drew this year began to build on a "green" record which includes a 10-year-old anti-pesticide standard that shuns the use of chemicals on campus grounds. Last year, the school began a car-sharing service with two hybrid cars on campus for students' use and this year, the liberal arts college created a new environmental studies and sustainability major.
Although building a new dorm is not inherently eco-friendly, it was necessary to remain competitive, officials have said. The construction was more expensive than a non-green building, but the payoff is expected to be 25 percent less in energy costs. Another energy-saving feature is the slate-look roof, made of 80 percent recycled rubber, which is treated with a reflective coating so it absorbs less heat.
Construction is not completed so the university has not received its LEED certification yet, however, it is registered with the Green Building Council and has following the requirements for a "silver" rating, the most popular of the council's certifications. There are 2,122 certified projects worldwide and Drew's dorm is one of 17,450 registered projects awaiting completion.
http://www.dailyrecord.com/article/2...18/1005/NEWS01
Bob Hertzberg green contrarian
Bob Hertzberg’s audience seems as muted as the dismal gray skies outside. The attendees are pale, polite civil servants. The location is a conference room in Wentloog, a rainy industrial town outside Cardiff, the capital of Wales. These 16 Welsh officials have come to hear California native Hertzberg preach the gospel of solar energy. The brightest splash of color in this room (if not all Wentloog) is the scarlet cable-knit sweater that Hertzberg wears as he enters.
At six feet and 230 pounds, Hertzberg would be hard to miss in any room. He still radiates the charisma of the California politician he used to be. Back in Sacramento he was nicknamed "Huggy Bear" for his tendency to embrace everyone he met. (Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose transition team Hertzberg helped to manage, calls him "Hertzie.") Hertzberg served as Speaker of the California Assembly during the electricity crisis of 2002, when Enron squeezed favorable contracts out of the state by choking off its power supply. That debacle left him passionate about the importance of renewable energy. And a failed primary campaign for mayor of Los Angeles left Hertzberg in need of a new career.
So he founded a solar-power company, G24i, and quickly became the most contrarian guy in the renewable energy business. Most of his rivals produce silicon solar panels for the first world. Hertzberg is building silicon-free solar strips, and says his earliest customers are in the developing world, especially Africa and India. Most solar companies seek government handouts; Hertzberg avoids them like the plague. And while few solar firms would think of bringing their product to a cloudy climate, Hertzberg set up his headquarters in Wales--in part to prove that G24i's technology can work anywhere.
Hertzberg talks to his audience as if he's still running for office. "So far, solar power has benefited rich people, governments and corporations," he declaims. "We're going to provide it for ordinary folks." He explains that G24i's solar strips will fit on backpacks, computer cases and even purses. They will charge cell phones and other gadgets, even on a dreary day like this. Wales, a land once known for dirty coal mines, could host a clean-energy revolution. "We're telling the story of the transformation of Europe!" he bellows.
Based on this performance you would never know that shares in solar-power companies were being pummeled in the global markets. First Solar, a G24i rival, saw its share price drop from a high of $311 to a low of $85 in 2008 The bear market was caused, ironically, by a strong year for production. Investors think solar producers are less likely to receive the government subsidies on which they've relied to date.
... Hertzberg's golden rule: "Don't rely on subsidies. You spend all your time and money lobbying government and filling in forms."
To his surprise, Hertzberg found less onerous regulations in Europe. Thanks to carbon-emission cuts mandated by the 1998 Kyoto accords, many European governments are keen to attract renewable energy companies. In 2006, Hertzberg heard about a disused factory in Wales. Acer Computers commissioned the facility but didn't take full occupancy because of corporate cutbacks. Hertzberg had never been to Wales, but he figured it was close enough to London--two hours by train--that he could tap the British capital's glut of green investment funding. Also, he wouldn't have to compete for cash and attention with scores of solar companies on the European mainland.
...Instead of promising a job boom for the locals, Hertzberg merely stressed that G24i's presence would put Cardiff on Europe's green-energy map. G24i also committed to building a green education center for kids. "He's a very impressive chap," says Helen Williams, an officer with a government group called Invest Wales, who attended Hertzberg's lecture. "He wants results, and because he's so up front about it rather than being wishy-washy, people are willing to help."
...Solar cells on sheets of extremely thin, flexible film are not new. U.S. firms such as Powerfilm and Nanosolar already make them. Thin film accounts for 10% of the global solar market now, and that share will rise to 20% by 2010, according to the European Photovoltaic Industry Association. For an undisclosed sum, Hertzberg licensed exclusive rights to a new technology developed by Swiss scientist Michael Graetzel. His thin film was impregnated with an especially light-sensitive dye. "G24i is the first company to try dye-sensitized cells on a large scale," says Andreas Bett of Germany's Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems.
Of the light that hits a typical thin-film cell, about 8% is converted into electricity. Silicon cells capture approximately 15% of their light. Graetzel's dye-based technology captures just 3%--but does so at any light level, unlike its rivals. Better yet, G24i's cells require so little energy to make that the company plans to power its entire factory with a 2-megawatt wind turbine. "It's renewable energy making renewable energy," crows Hertzberg. The company won't estimate its first-year revenue, but Hertzberg eagerly touts its first products: thin-film batteries that can charge gadgets on the go, and a solar-powered LED light.
...Hertzberg is unconcerned--indeed, he expects those entrepreneurs to be his best customers. They charge around 50¢ a pop, so his device could pay for itself in one day. And he argues that the rise of micro-finance in the developing world makes his product affordable to anyone. "Analysts aren't seeing the bigger picture," Hertzberg insists. In short, Hertzberg aims to make a profit by creating a global solar ecosystem. With that in mind, he ends his pitch to the Welsh civil servants by urging them to ditch subsidies and focus on nurturing green startups with a range of tax incentives. "The big companies aren't coming," he says. "But you can help the little folks come in and make heroes out of them."
Solar power becoming more affordable
$77k still seems a little pricey to me, I could go for the $8k though.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/27/bu...exprod=myyahoo
More Sun for Less: Solar Panels Drop in Price
By KATE GALBRAITH
Published: August 26, 2009
When Greg Hare looked into putting solar panels on his ranch-style home in Magnolia, Tex., last year, he decided he could not afford it. “I had no idea solar was so expensive,” he recalled.
Enlarge This Image
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/...7solar_190.jpg Michael Stravato for The New York Times
Greg Hare recently installed solar panels on his home that he hopes will cover between 50 and 80 percent of his electrical bills in Magnolia, Texas.
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Times Topics: Solar Energy
Michael Stravato for The New York Times
Greg Hare installed solar panels on his home in Magnolia, Tex., for $77,000 — less than he expected to pay.
Leah Nash for The New York Times
A worker at SolarWorld in Hillsboro, Ore., fills a container with polysilichttp://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/...z-webSOLAR.jpgon, which is then melted to make a solar crystal.
The New York Times
But the cost of solar panels has plunged lately, changing the economics for many homeowners. Mr. Hare ended up paying $77,000 for a large solar setup that he figures might have cost him $100,000 a year ago.
“I just thought, ‘Wow, this is an opportunity to do the most for the least,’ ” Mr. Hare said.
For solar shoppers these days, the price is right. Panel prices have fallen about 40 percent since the middle of last year, driven down partly by an increase in the supply of a crucial ingredient for panels, according to analysts at the investment bank Piper Jaffray.
The price drops — coupled with recently expanded federal incentives — could shrink the time it takes solar panels to pay for themselves to 16 years, from 22 years, in places with high electricity costs, according to Glenn Harris, chief executive of SunCentric, a solar consulting group. That calculation does not include state rebates, which can sometimes improve the economics considerably.
American consumers have the rest of the world to thank for the big solar price break.
Until recently, panel makers had been constrained by limited production of polysilicon, which goes into most types of panels. But more factories making the material have opened, as have more plants churning out the panels themselves — especially in China.
“A ton of production, mostly Chinese, has come online,” said Chris Whitman, the president of U.S. Solar Finance, which helps arrange bank financing for solar projects.
At the same time, once-roaring global demand for solar panels has slowed, particularly in Europe, the largest solar market, where photovoltaic installations are forecast to fall by 26 percent this year compared with 2008, according to Emerging Energy Research, a consulting firm. Much of that drop can be attributed to a sharp slowdown in Spain. Faced with high unemployment and an economic crisis, Spain slashed its generous subsidy for the panels last year because it was costing too much.
Many experts expect panel prices to fall further, though not by another 40 percent.
Manufacturers are already reeling from the price slump. For example, Evergreen Solar, which is based in Massachusetts, recently reported a second-quarter loss that was more than double its loss from a year earlier.
But some manufacturers say that cheaper panels could be a good thing in the long term, spurring enthusiasm among customers and expanding the market.
“It’s important that these costs and prices do come down,” said Mike Ahearn, the chief executive of First Solar, a panel maker based in Tempe, Ariz.
First Solar recently announced a deal to build two large solar arrays in Southern California to supply that region’s dominant utility. But across the United States, the installation of large solar systems — the type found on commercial or government buildings — has been hurt by financing problems, and is on track to be about the same this year as in 2008, according to Emerging Energy Research.
The smaller residential sector continues to grow: In California, by far the largest market in the country, residential installations in July were up by more than 50 percent compared with a year earlier. With prices dropping, that momentum looks poised to continue.
John Berger, chief executive of Standard Renewable Energy, the company in Houston that put panels on Mr. Hare’s home, said that his second-quarter sales rose by more than 225 percent from the first quarter.
“Was that as a product of declining panel prices? Almost certainly yes,” Mr. Berger said.
Expanded federal incentives have also helped spur the market. Until this year, homeowners could get a 30 percent tax credit for solar electric installations, but it was capped at $2,000. That cap was lifted on Jan. 1.
Mr. Hare in Texas cited the larger tax credit, which sliced about $23,000 from his $77,000 bill, as a major factor in his decision to go solar, in addition to the falling panel prices. Sensing a good deal, he even got a larger system than he had originally planned — going from 42 panels to 64. The electric bill on his 7,000-square-foot house and garage has typically run $600 to $700 a month, but he expects a reduction of 40 to 80 percent.
Mr. Berger predicts that with panel prices falling and the generous federal credit in place, utilities will start lowering rebates they offer to homeowners who put panels on their roofs.
One that has already done so is the Salt River Project, the main utility in Phoenix, which cut its homeowners’ rebate by 10 percent in June. Lori Singleton, the utility’s sustainability manager, said the utility had recently spent more than it budgeted for solar power, a result of a surge in demand as more solar installers moved into Arizona and government incentives kicked in.
California has been steadily bringing down its rebates. An impending 29 percent cut in rebates offered within the service area of Pacific Gas and Electric, the dominant utility in Northern California, means that “with the module price drop over the last few months, it is pretty much a wash,” Bill Stewart, president of SolarCraft, an installer in Novato, Calif., said in an e-mail message.
Even if falling rebates cancel out some of the solar panel price slump, more innovative financing strategies are also helping to make solar affordable for homeowners. This year about a dozen states — following moves by California and Colorado last year — have enacted laws enabling solar panels to be paid off gradually, through increased property taxes, after a municipality first shoulders the upfront costs.
Some installers have adopted similar approaches. Danita Hardy, a homeowner in Phoenix, had been put off by the prospect of spending $20,000 for solar panels — until she spotted a news item about a company called SunRun that takes on the upfront expense and recovers its costs gradually, in a lease deal, essentially through the savings in a homeowner’s electric bill.
“I thought well, heck, this might be doable,” said Ms. Hardy, who wound up having to lay out only $800 to get 15 solar panels for her home.
Stan Myer's water powered car
Sent in by R-Plugger, thanks!
The inventor, Stan Meyer, invented a car that runs on water, for anyone who's interested, this link brings you to a page about it and some videos.
I thought it was pretty cool.
http://www.doctorkoontz.com/Scalar_P...eyer/index.htm
CFLs and EPA rules, have we gone too far?
Some crazy stuff about CFL's. According to this, Congress has mandated that incandescents not be used by 2014. Our legislators come up with some crazy stuff sometmes.
Sent in by Surfstix, thanks.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewr...ves/75548.HTML
