I have been working the alternative energy scenarios on my Connecticut property this past year.  When I started, the State of Connecticut was no longer doing the individual incentives for solar power.  While I was in the process of installing a 6kw solar system, they reinstated their program.   I put my project on hold, applied for the rebate and was awarded a $9071 rebate for my 6KW system based on the amount of energy it’s going to generate (which is pretty close to 9071 KWH per year).

To increase the amount of power my panels were going to create and get the maximum rebate possible, I had to chop down one tree (in a stand of about ten other trees).  Small price to pay.

I reran my payback analysis figures based on today’s scenario.  It came out that they system would pay for itself in 15 years.  The expected system life is 25 years.  I will keep the house until the market goes back up within the next 20 years (it’s bound to happen - CT has experienced two real estate “corrections” of this magnitude in the past 30 years).   This is still the best place to park my money for creating a retirement nest egg.

It is going to cost me a little over $28k to install the 6kw solar system.   Based on what else I could be doing with that money, this will generate a 4.5 x better return over 20 years than anything else I could be doing with my money right now.   Even the safest place to park your money - US Treasuries adjusted to keep up with inflation - the solar panels still generate a 2.3 x better investment.

Servidyne was awarded a $3.1 million dollar contract to retrofit all the lighting fixtures at the Naval Base in Guam.  They were selected in part because of their exceptional project management skills.   The Navy expects the project to save them $825k in electrical costs per year for a 3 million KWH per year reduction in energy usage.

http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS164599+02-Sep-2009+BW20090902

In Michael Porter’s book on Competitive Strategies, he talks about the competitive forces that shape an industry.   One of the main competiitve forces that impact almost every industry is the source of their energy.   The more options businesses create for their sources of power, the more competitive they will be long term - espcially with respect to other companies in their industry.  

This point was brought home recently by a business I have been working with on assessing, aligning, and expanding their energy options.  The company is a small speciality grocery who has seen his electrical bills go up from $700 to $7000 dollars over the past 20 years while his overall consumption has decreased due to efficiency improvements in his refrigeration.   When deregulation went into effect, he was able to get a lower electrical rate from an out of state provider, yet had to still pay the local carrier for delivering the electricty.   And then last year with the dramatic increase in heating oil prices,  it was the first year his company didn’t turn a profit.  

With electrical rates expected to experience a simiar increase over the next 20 years.  and the impact of volatile oil prices on his long term viability,  the business owner wants to develop his own power solutions.   The more options he can create to power his store, the less he will pay for his power, the more competitive he will be and the lower he can charge for his products or the more profit he can make on the products he charges that are in line with his local competitors.  

Through the Project  Energy Independence course, we are looking at two solutions - one for creating his own electricty with roof solar panels and another for heating his store with a removable wood furnace.  He doesn’t own the store so any solution he selects, he wants to do it with minimal infrastructure changes - these two solutions enable that.   There is a  whole foods store in a community 25 miles away that is using a fuel cell as a back up electrical generator - we are looking into some grant money to explore that option.

I inherited a 20kw diesel generator with this property I purchased in Alaska as a corporate retreat center. I’ve owned this property for four years now, and have started the generator on several occasions - mostly out of curiousity as it hasn’t been used even as back up power for almost a decade now. It used to be the primary power generation system for the property until the power company brought power out to the property.

Just what these folks needed a 20kw gen set for is beyond me. The previous owner did have some interesting power tools in the garage - a very large compressor probably being the biggest power draw. Other than that, there is no other evidence of large power requirements out here and the home’s electrical requirements are relatively minimal. Inside the house, the largest draw is the electric dryer that at the most requires 4 kw. All cooking appliances are gas and the water and home heating is through a diesel furnace. Here is an electrical power consumption table for common household appliances. When a generator is far bigger than what is needed, it doesn’t run very efficiently.

A few years back a friend who specialized in remote power generation in the Air Force was testing out the generator. A couple local guys working on the property didn’t see why we wanted to fuss around with it since the power never goes out in this small town in Alaska. I wanted it working in case we ever needed it. When the power goes out the pumps don’t run for the water, septic systems, or the diesel boiler. The power went out the other night - for the entire town. Luckily they got the power back online within four hours and according to the long time residents, this was the longest they had ever experienced a power outage.

This gave me ample motivation to look back into my 20kw generator. With a new battery and some new antifreeze, the beast fired right up. We are having the electrician come out to verify the system is ready to cut over to the generator in the event we need it. To find out how expensive is is to generate our electricity with this diesel generator, I need to find out the BSFC for this motor. This number is fuel consumed per brake horse power per hours run. You multiply the BSFC by actual output to see how much fuel you would use. Nearest I can tell is the most this generator will consume is about a half gallon of fuel per hour to meet a peak load demand from this property. To keep this simple, lets say it uses 10 gallons of fuel per day. At $4 per gallon, that is $40 per day and $1200 per month. This makes getting that wind turbine up and operational even more attractive.

What is amazing is how the various states create electricity and who owns the power companies. According to this Nebraska state website:

“Nebraska is the only state that generates electricity entirely by publicly-owned power systems. As of July, 2008, the statewide average price for all sectors from all electric utilities is the eighth-lowest rate in the country, based on the latest federal figures. Nationally, electricity costs 49 percent more than it does in Nebraska. Across all sectors, Hawaii has the highest electricity rate (32 cents), and West Virginia has the lowest electricity rate (5.66 cents).”

Here is a state by state summary of electrical rates. It was gathered from http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table5_6_a.html.

I have a property in Alaska that has at least 15 different types of light fixtures.   This is what happens when an artist, NOT an engineer designs a house.  Trying to use low wattage florescent and LED bulbs in the various fixtures is not an easy task.   Top this off, in the winter, improper lighting actually causes health problems.

This house has 20, 50 W halogen miniature spot lights.   The only low wattage bulbs I’ve found to replace those are LED bulbs that cost $50 a piece.  The house has a lovely atrium green house with 6 metal halide lights that are 100w each - needed to keep those beautiful plants alive in the dark winter months.   The fixtures are an integral part of the design, and I’m still looking for low wattage bulbs to replace these - I would like to keep the fixtures if at all possible. I did find LED grow lights - they cost $500 per light and I’d have to get rid of the current fixtures   WOW. I’ll keep looking.

What is so amazing about this house design - this house was off the grid when it was built. Electrical power from the grid was not available this far out of town until about 8 years ago. For the first ten years, the electricity for the property was created by a very large, and very loud windmill and a 10kw diesel generator. The windmill is long gone. The diesel generator sits like an old dinosaur in the pump house. When it was built in the early ’90s - yes there were not energy efficient lighting available. But why the selection of such unusual light fixtures in a remote location? The only place I’ve been able to find bulbs for some of them have been on specialty lighting websites.

I am in the process of changing not only light bulbs in this house, but also lighting fixtures. This is a lot more work and will take more time as I want to get light fixtures that work best with some of the newer light bulbs. So this will take some experimentation. Here are several examples that make it unfavorable to switch the lights to the current low wattage option:

1. Where the light shines - I just found LED Accent lights for chandeliers. I thought, perfect, these will be great in the lamp over the kitchen table. WRONG. They only use 1.5 watts and are supposed to replace the 40 watt bulbs that were in there. The issue is they only project light upward - away from the base of the light bulb. This lamp has the light bulbs placed upright as if they were candles. The lumens from these 1.5 watt LED bulbs appeared less than 1/3 that of the light bulbs they were replacing because of where the light shone. And these were the bulbs labeled “bright white light.”

2.  How the lights dim - I have a number of can light fixtures that are on dimmers. Conventional incandescent light bulbs dim well and provide nice mood lighting. I found 15 watt florescent lights that fit nicely in the cans that claim to be “dimmable.” While the conventional incandescent bulbs are able to dim to about 1/5th of their most luminous, the dimmable florescents - it’s even difficult to tell they have been dimmed, especially when compared to the dimability of the incandescent.

3. What the light looks like - I wanted to put lights in the house that simulated sunshine - since in the winter the lack of light sometimes makes it hard for me to stay awake. My neighbor was selling these low wattage bulbs that supposedly simulated sunshine so I purchased a number of his light bulbs to support his entrepreneurial pursuit. I put 8 of these into can lights in the kitchen. I thought it made the place look like an operating room, my daughter thought it looked like we were on a mission to mars. The lights are called “Blue Max” Lighting and the average color temperature is 5900°K. Daylight color temperature is 5500°K and incandescent lights are 3200°K. The Color Rendering Index is >94 - what this means is to what extent do objects appear as the same colors as they do in natural light. Well, I do say that the lights work to keep me awake. I am much more awake in the kitchen than I am in the other rooms of the house. But for some reason, I just don’t like the light they produce - it is far too blue. I’m not removing them yet - as it might just be something I need to get used to.

So the question is how many Alaskans does it take to change a light bulb? I’m not sure yet - so far 5 of us have been involved in this light bulb changing effort and we’ve been working on it for a while. Not much to do up here in the winter.

Note - this just in from twitter - LEDHomeLighting @michellecheetah To learn more about the difference of LEDs vs CFL vs Incandscent checkout this site too http://tinyurl.com/bz6×9o

I received an email from Barbara MacDonald of Spot that Zebra - a management consulting firm located in South Africa. Barbara was sharing with me that because of the rolling blackouts in South Africa that periodically turn off power to her office for four hours at a time during business hours that she has to create alternative energy solutions. Folks there with small businesses have set up simple back up battery solutions to handle these rolling black outs. Click here to learn more - http://www.scienceinafrica.co.za/2008/february/backuppower.htm

I like to go after “low hanging” fruit - that is those opportunities that are easy to grab. I’ve been evaluating where is the best location for me to use wind power and here is what I have found so far:

1. You can do “small” (very small”) wind applications in residential developments IF you can make it look like it’s a hobby.  The restrictions are:

• It can’t disturb your neighbors - think barking dog here from a nuisance perspective.
• It can’t exceed 30 feet in height - think TV antenna here.
• You may not be able to tie it into the electrical grid.
• This will limit the amount of electricity you can generate from wind power - most likely less than 1 kw.

2.  On larger lots (over 5 acres) you may be able to put up a residential wind mill,  but you have to:

• Comply with all local zoning laws (this mean getting the proper permits).
• Make sure you site the windmill in a location that gets the most consistent wind.  (I am on my way to a property in Alaska to put up a web-based weather station to evaluate the consistency of the wind speed over several months).
• Evaluate the stability of the ground where you will be mounting the wind mill structure.
• You will likely be able to generate most if not all of your electrical power from a windmill if you have a good consistent wind flow and it may be up to 1/2 the cost of doing a solar array that would put out the same power.

Of the three property locations I manage,  I am considering wind power on two properties that are consistently windy - one in Nevada and one in Alaska.   The property in Connecticut is unsuitable for wind power as is not windy there - it is Connecticut after all - peaceful tranquil, bucolic.

In Nevada, my primary concern is the permitting process as no one in my neighborhood yet has a wind mill and it is a pretty tight home owners association to contend with.

In Alaska, several of my neighbors already have wind mills.   My main concern is large wind gusts.  The lot routinely sees gusts over 50 MPH.   I have to get a fairly robust wind mill to withstand large gusts.   Additionally, the electrical company up there does not do net metering yet.   So I will have to have a battery back up system.

Because of the gusting wind issue, I found the Helix Windspire 5 KW system may work for the property in Alaska.   They offered to do a site assessment for $1500.  From preliminary conversations that did not include putting up the weather station.    Prior to comitting to their “remote” site assessment, I wanted to collect my own wind data with a web-based weather station.

I did find a very good resource for a summary of small residential wind mills - http://www.allsmallwindturbines.com/. Having earned my first engineering degree in Aerospace Engineering, I tend to prefer the more high tech designs. But there are some inexpensive “DIY” designs as well for those that like to tinker - check out www.earth4energy.com if you are interested in a do it yourself application.

That solar awning post stimulated this contribution by photographer Jody Kasch - a solar carport.  This is at the Patagonia Company in Ventura, California.  On Renewable Energy.com, it says the carport uses 360 Sharp Panels each producing 185 watts of power and produces 66.6 kw of power.  However, that did not adjust for panel or inverter efficiency.   Adjusting for panel and inverter efficiencies, this provides about 55 KW of power.   This is enough to power about 55 homes.

What does that mean?   Lets say you turn on a 40 watt light bulb.   This means it takes 40 watts of electricity to make that light bulb light up.   If you had one solar panel on your house that was rated at 185 Watts - you would lose about 30 watts because most solar panels are 88% efficient and most power invertors (so you convert the DC power from the panel to AC power to run your home lights and appliances) are 95% efficient.   This leaves you with 155 watts of power you can use to turn on those light bulbs.  That is three 40 watt bulbs and one 15 watt bulb.

Now you need to be continuously providing those light bulbs with the 155 watts of power to keep them running.   This happens as long as the sun is shining on the solar panels.  When the sun goes down, the solar panels stop producing electricity.

So what is Patagonia doing with their 55KW of power?   How are they storing any excess they create?   What are they doing at night?  These are all things you need to consider when creating your own solar energy electrical system.

As part of my drive to become energy self-sufficient (and to help others do the same), I get google alerts for a number of terms, and stumbled into this website by Design Pedia from the term “Energy Independence.”

I won’t google alert the term “green” as that is way overused. And having spent part of my engineering career studying the environmental life cycle of products, most “green” applications with respect to energy self-sufficiency might not be “green” at all - but still make sense to do from the stand point of long term sustainability AND economics. For example, those compact florescent bulbs - quite toxic on disposal because of the mercury. Likewise with solar panels. And many other materials that go into creating sustainable energy solutions - they need to be properly disposed of. So, from a life cycle environmental perspective, I’m not sure we really have enough information yet to know enough about the long term ramifications of the more sustainable energy producing options to make claims that one is more “green” than another.

But these designs, literally are “green.” Amongst the many fantastic design concepts, something about these three images were really charming. And just how did the little square house with four sides and white picket fence become the aspirational norm?

I recently spent $200 to swap out all the high wattage incandescent light bulbs in my home with low wattage compact florescent and LED task lights. I used 60% less electricity and saved $380 per year on my electric bill.

I was reading the Time Magazine article on January 12, 2009 about reducing energy usage and they cited that one of the main reasons people did not want to switch to compact florescent bulbs was because of the “cost.” The reality is that low wattage compact florescent bulbs last 5 times longer than incandescent light bulbs and even lower wattage LED lights last 10 times longer. So the cost savings are not just with reduced electrical costs - there are also significant savings in having to purchase and replace low life, high wattage incandescent bulbs.

How many people reducing their energy use does it take to change a light bulb? None, their light bulbs never wear out.

Click here to calculate your own cost savings with switching to compact florescent bulbs.