I’ve been evaluating the various ways to power properties in three different locations over the past several months and have found a bewildering number of options to do just that.  Some are still in the twinkle in the eye phase of development, others are more proven, but my gosh the price tag makes you feel like you’re underwater gasping for air. Basically anywhere you live you need power for three functions:

1. Run Electrical appliances.
2. Heat and Cool Your Dwelling
3. Get you from point A to point B.

So here are the three locations I’ve been evaluating, the options, and the feasibility of those options.

Alaska - this property is on the Lynn Canal - a very deep fjord about 70 miles northwest of Juneau.    The local population is very pro-environmental so there is wide acceptance for doing alternative energy solutions.   The property actually just got on the grid less than ten years ago so it is already set up to be off the grid.  It has a large 20kw diesel generator that powers the main house and three outbuildings that includes an apartment.   It used to house a very large windmill in a field and the wiring still exists to the main generator shed. The home and hot water are currently heated with a diesel furnace.   Propane provides cooking fuel.   There are options to put in a geothermal heat pump system.  The piping can either be run underground or can be placed out in the water.    The approximate cost to do that is $20,000.  Current heating oil costs on that site are $5000 per year.   The site also has strong gusting winds sometimes over 70 MPH.   There is a 5kw windmill by Helix Wind that can handle wind from all directions and large gusts.    The cost is approximately $20,000.    Current electrical costs are $4000 per year.   Reducing the electrical usage is somewhat difficult as the custom home was built using approximately 14 different types of light fixtures.  It is not an easy matter of just replacing incandescent bulbs with florescent bulbs - most of the light fixtures need to be replaced.  There is also a green house that has high wattage metal halyide lights.   

To modify the home’s heat and electrical sources is possible, but may not be desirable.   The windmill would be the easiest to implement solution since the electrical system is already set up to be off the grid.   The Geothermal Heat Pump system would be considerably more difficult as there are no qualified installers in the area and doing the piping into the water, even though it is a closed loop system, would require special permitting and may not be allowed.   Doing a horizontal or vertical closed loop ground system would also add considerable cost to the installation and significantly alter the natural landscape on the property.   There is another alternative to use the existing infrastructure of both the diesel generator to create the electricity and the diesel furnace to heat the home - that would be to create algae oil.    But from what I’ve seen on the algae to oil tools - this is not an easy task and there are not currently off the shelf solutions to make oil from algae.   My initial step is going to be to install the windmill and keep experimenting with the algae biofuel alternatives.    The algae biofuel would also be used as fuel for the diesel truck and tractor.   I could put in a larger 100kw windmill and use the excess power to create hydrogen for a fuel cell car - however there are no technicians in the area with hydrogen or fuel cell experience so maintaining a fuel cell vehicle up there over the long term would be more difficult. The town has told me if I set up my own power company, they do have to purchase back my electricity at their wholesale rate. But they do not do net metering.

Nevada - there are two properties in Northern Nevada on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada range.  The first property is a small home in a tract neighborhood.  The options for this house are limited to solar panels on the roof and possibly a very small windmill.   For this home, we have already replaced all the light bulbs with low wattage florescent, installed a tankless hot water heater and added an energy efficient natural gas fireplace.   The other property is on a south facing hill with ample space for solar panels.   It already employs a passive solar design, and was designed using low wattage light fixtures, and tankless water heaters.  We have designed solar awnings, a portable solar carport, are putting solar panels on the polar king freezer trailer and can ground mount at least 50kw of solar panels on the 2 acre hill behind the house.   The property also gets winds up to 30 MPH from the valley floor for half the day.    This property is also well suited for a geothermal heat pump system but because of the passive solar design and the airflow characteristics, the home has minimal heating and cooling needs as it is.   The excess electricity generated on this property could be used to create hydrogen for a fuel cell vehicle.  The area has numerous people who are technically qualified to help with a fuel cell vehicle.   The plan for this property is to first install the solar awnings as that will reduce the cooling needs of the house.  Then install the portable solar carport and put the solar panels on the polar king freezer.   The next step will be to install a 5 KW windmill and then work on the hydrogen creation system for the fuel cell.   Depending on the needs for the hydrogen fuel cell system, we may install more solar panels or windmills.

I’ve also been evaluating some other novel energy storage concepts for the Nevada property. Research Scientists at Worcester Polytechnic Institute have found a way to use asphalt to capture solar energy to heat a liquid. There are some other fascinating ways of very inexpensively using the sun’s energy on vacumn sealed tubes heating liquid mounted flat or in a trackable concave mirror. With both of these combined, they can circulate liquid through a tank that then uses that liquid in the tank to run a waste heat generator for electricity. After the water goes through the waste heat generator, it gets returned to the hot liquid sink to be heated up again from the asphalt and the concave mirror solar energy collectors. Electratherm, the manufacturer of the waste heat generator, said they were going to be rolling out a 5kw system by the end of 2009. The benefit of this system is it would also keep the driveway hot for snow melting in the winter. The key would be to use a non-toxic antifreeze in the system.

Connecticut - This property sits on a west facing hill.   There is ample space for ground mounted solarpanels facing south.   We priced a 6kw system which would cover the electrical needs of the home.   The installed costs would be 50K.   There is also ample space to install a horizontal piping geothermal heat pump system.    The house is a passive solar design as well so the geothermal heat pump would work well for the cooling needs in the summer but it may be inadequate to for the heating needs in the winter.   More evaluation is required - however there are other people in the area employing geothermal heat pump solutions and there are qualified installers in the area.    We may be selling this property within the next year or two so we have put the energy self-sufficiency projects on hold.   Homes in the area are not selling at even their market value so making improvements on this property doesn’t make sense at this time.

When looking at creating your own energy, energy storage is a big issue. With solar power, you’re only creating power when the sun is shining. With windpower, when the wind is blowing. With hydropower, when the water is running. It’s a basic energy source, energy sink issue (a sink is how you use or store the energy).

To date, most people have been using large banks of batteries for energy storage associated with alternative energy. Batteries are the weak link in the whole system (and the most toxic). They have about 1/5th the life of the solar panels for which they store energy.

Larger power companies are developing larger power storage schemes. The question is, can the individual use some of these energy storage schemes as well? In the picture below, the company SolarReserve uses mirrors to focus the sun on a large stack that converts salt to liquid and then uses the hot liquid to run turbines to generate power. The liquid salt holds the heat for much longer than the conventional steam turbine solar thermal designs.

Yesterday, February 12, 2009 was a worldwide Twestival for Clean Drinking Water. This was where people who use Twitter to communicate with each other, got together in over 175 cities worldwide to raise money for clean drinking water initiatives. Cheetah Learning raised $2300 for Clean Drinking Water by donating 5% of revenues made for the day from their Twestival activities to teach people how to do project management for clean drinking water projects.

Obtaining clean drinking water requires power. It requires the power to get the water up from the ground and it requires power to make sure the drinking water is free from disease producing microorganisms. One of the ways to better insure that there is adequate clean drinking water is to adequately process waste water. This takes even more power. Yes you can use some low power methods to adequately process waste water, but modern day methods that insure far better processing for preserving clean water requires tremendous electricity.

The Hill Canyon Waste Water Treatment Facility in Thousand Oaks, CA uses solar power and methane to power it’s waste water treatment facility.

The solar power system cost $1.5 million to install and produces about 15% of the treatment centers power. The solar power system is owned by Renewable Ventures/MMA and sells electricity to Hill Canyon Wastewater Treatment Plant for 16.8 cents/kW. The methane system uses methane gas from the facility’s anaerobic digesters to power (2) 250 kW generators. This system cost $.5m (1/3 the cost of the solar system) and provides approximately 45% of the facility’s energy needs. This system is owned and operated by U.S. Energy. The Hill Canyon Wastewater Treatment Plant purchases this electricity at a rate of 6.4 cents/kW.

This is very interesting that the methane system cost 1/3 as much as the solar system and produces 3 times the electricity. What I love about this story is that it is the waste they are processing that creates the largest percentage of electricity to process that waste.

The inverse relationship between money spent on the system vs. the energy produced appears to be a universal truth as I have seen it in existence in many other realms. The engineers perpetual question is - how can I spend the least amount of money and get the maximum energy out. The engineers managing the Thousand Oaks facility are doing a fantastic job with answering this question.

There are some fascinating schemes out there to use solar power for your electrical needs with very little upfront investment - some appear more ready to go than others.   I was looking at CitizenRe’s approach over the weekend.    This is where they have set up an army of “ecopreneurs” to sign up home owners to have solar panels installed on their homes for a security deposit of $500 and then they have them pay a rental fee for their solar panels that is the same rate as what they are currently paying for electricity.   They get to lock in their electrical rates for the duration of their contract which can go up to 25 years.  Damn this looks like a very attractive offer.

HOWEVER, I didn’t see in their marketing material where  they have installed one solar system yet.   Now if you’re just getting into this concept,  you might think this is a new idea - but they have been around a LONG TIME - especially in terms of today’s technology time frames.

I was researching what others were saying about Citizenre and found this blog post written two years ago about Citizenre.    They were supposed to have their manufacturing facility up by September 2007.   Two years later, they are now claiming their manufacturing facility will be online by Jan. 2009.  I did not see any mention of it on their website and all their marketing material is still talking about not making any promises to people who you get signed up about an installation date.   So it appears they have missed this deadline as well.

One of the things they do emphasize in their marketing materials is that if people have the ability to put solar panels on their homes and pay the upfront costs, they should by all means do this.   They suggest people visit www.findsolar.com to find a solar installer in their area.

If you really want to do solar but you can’t afford the upfront costs, there are other ways to get into this for low cost - finance it with a home equity loan, or go with a long term lease that some of the larger solar installers offer.  They have it set up where you end up paying the same amount as you are for your electricity as well.   And at the end of the leasing period, you own the panels.  We are summarizing these plans in our March Newsletter.

If you want to go solar, I’d recommend you go with a company that can deliver on that arrangement today rather than waiting for a promise to deliver sometime in the future.  If Citizenre can deliver on what it promises, it will truly be a remarkable company.   I am hoping they succeed.   In the interim, I’m going to continue with the approach on designing and installing my own systems on my properties and figuring out my own creative ways to finance the installations.

For the past six weeks, I’ve been doing feasibility analyses for adopting solar power for properties in Nevada, Connecticut, and Alaska.  Here are some of the barriers I’ve discovered:

1. Reliability of Installers.   I have talked with no fewer than ten installers in two states.   All were very lax in returning my calls (they must be swamped).  For those that did return calls, they had convoluted return phone call systems where I never actually got to talk with a live person when I attempted to call back.  For the five I did actually meet in person to get bids to help me put solar panels on my property, NOT one, and I am not kidding, NOT ONE bothered to follow up with a bid.  Maybe a homeowner considering two systems for two properties - 3kw and 5kw is just not worth bothering with.   Anyone who wants to get involved in this industry who understands the basic of service delivery will clean up as the people I’ve met currently playing in this field are not customer focused.   

2. Availability of Panels.   Several installers told me that it was three to six months out to get the panels and forget about obtaining the high efficiency panels - the supply just can’t keep up with the demand.  I was ready to purchase a 3kw system from one company but when I went to call them back to place the order, their phone had been disconnected.   What is interesting about this, there was a NY Times Article Feb. 3, 2009 that said there was a glut of panels on the market.   Where is this glut?   Maybe with the lower efficiency panels - I can understand that.   I’m going to the North American Renewable Energy Conference in Vegas in March - I will try to find more reliable suppliers there.  If they are really hurting for money, you’d think these folks would be beating down my door.

3. Capability of existing designs.  This is a hot research field and people are discovering much more efficient and creative ways of converting the sun into electricity.   Solar dyes are one hot field where they can tint windows, wall coverings, shades, etc to collect solar energy.   

4. Availability of Grid Tie Systems - In Nevada and Connecticut you can tie into the grid and get credit so it makes it more cost effective to use solar panels.  In Alaska, you can tie into the grid, but you cannot get credits for the electricity you put back into the system.   

After doing my research and learning what is involved, my decision is do one installation on my own to learn more (and possibly see about creating a system for people to learn how to run the business of installing solar systems).  But before I make more investments on a wider scale on more properties, I am waiting until some of these new innovations are available commercially and the industry is more mature. 

According to: The program manager of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Energy Technology Program for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, John. Lushetsky, 

“To go from the 1 gigawatt of generation capacity that we have now [in the United States] to the 170 to 200 gigawatts called for by 2030 amounts to a 26 percent compounded annual growth rate over the next 20 years.  That’s a higher sustained growth rate than any industry has ever been asked to do before.”  

This was referenced in an article titled “Unprecedented Growth Seen for Solar Energy.”   The article should be titled, “Unprecedented Growth Required for Solar Energy.”

On my last trip to Alaska, on both the way there and back, I sat next to people who worked in natural resources for the State of Alaska. Both were studying ways of using biomass to create biofuels. There is an amazing amount of research going on with biofuels of all types. This is the ultimate cash from trash crop. There is a lot of trash wood (aka biomass) in Alaska. For example, Alder - it is a weed tree and literally grows like a weed. Tremendous effort is spent to keep alder growth controlled. It’s a “biomass” product. Consider seaweed - this is a major nuisance for commercial fisherman who encounter mile long rafts of it. Another fantastic biomass contributor. Algae is not something that you would think would solve the world’s energy crises - but yes, that is also a fantastic biomass source. Algae produces 30 times more fuel than other crops and grows extremely fast (plus the food demand for algae isn’t quite as high as say, corn or soybeans. . And who would’ve thought that someday we’d want to harvest algae in the desert as some researchers at the University of Nevada are developing. Most of the folks I know creating biofuels at home today are doing it with used vegetable oil from local restaurants. Another trash item that even just ten years ago restaurants had to pay to dispose of. Now they can sell it.

This all reminds me of the movie “Back to the Future” where the mad scientist toss’s some garbage in the car’s engine and off they go at warp speed. Why are we paying to move our garbage sometimes thousands of miles away when it can be a fuel source?

I have had major gut dissonance over the global warming issue as a driving factor in becoming energy self-sufficient. And it is NOT because of the scientific basis of if global warming exists or not or based on the pros and cons of global warming. Becoming energy self-sufficient is an economic and a national security decision. It is not a decision to save the planet as I have no idea of the long term ramifications of present day alternative energy solutions I am considering. The “environmentalist” arguments are not made based on economics or defensible scientific data but on a policy of fear and manipulation that will drive significant economic gain for the ones promoting their agenda. This diagram from http://www.boingboing.net/2009/02/04/climatic-heresy-3.html outlines the politics of fear on global warming.

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’m evaluating a potential hydro power application on a plot of land in Alaska that gets about 60 inches of rainfall per year and has a 500 foot elevation change. I was thinking of creating a 400 sqf rain catchment area that would catch about 6 million gallons of water per year and produce about an 11 gallon/minute flow rate. The potential power generated can be estimated based on this formula:

Dynamic Head (feet) x flow (gal/min) x .18 x .4 (turbine efficiency) = output watts

So, this idea for the water catchment hydro power would produce about 405 watts output of power, continuously or 3550 kWh/year.

The water catchment container to collect and hold 6 million gallons of water collected in a 400 x 400 foot area would only have to be 5 feet deep. The top of the property is an old gravel pit so I could create my pond by digging out a 400 x 400 foot hole five feet deep and put a flow controlled drain at the bottom. Since I may have issues with it freezing in the winter, it may make more sense to go a bit deeper below the frost line and dig about 20 feet deep. It could then double as a nice ice skating rink in the winter with the bottom of the pond hopefully not freezing.

Here is a spread sheet showing the hydro power calculations - Hydro Power Estimates