As some of my readers may have noticed, I have not been around much lately. The reasons being multifaceted, but center around a couple key factors; I’ve returned to Colorado, a place I love; I’ve gotten out of my funk of the past couple years; and lastly I starting working for a company that proves renewable energy is not just a figment of future promise, but is competitive currently and actually works, and the last two months I’ve been working my ass off towards bringing renewable energy into actual people’s lives.

Wind Turbines on the north side of the Columbia River in Washington State.

En route out of Oregon and my year long hiatus from my tree pruning business, I was in search of employment working on the giant Wind Turbines, but much to my dismay along my entire course through Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming & into Colorado, the only ones I saw were in Arlington, WY. Ironically, while moving my wife, to Colorado we saw many, many more. In Arlington, Oregon another large wind turbine project was being constructed. What is the roots of the name Arlington, windy as fuck?!

Giant Wind Turbines in Arlington, OR

Shortly after arriving in Colorado, I was hired on by Next Generation Energy in Lafayette, Colorado. A short list of renewable energy projects we work on, with some details to follow, is solar thermal heating of domestic hot water (for bathing, laundry, cooking, etc.), homes tied into either forced air or radiant heat, grid tied solar electric systems and stand alone photovoltaic systems to power remote communication towers or “street” lights and small wind turbines in the range of two feet diameter blades up to 12 feet.

Now I think there is a huge misconception out in the world that solar energy conversion to human use is an instant gratification device that us Americans are so used to receiving, yet this is not the case when we look at the installation costs of converting the sun’s energy into something useful. The simple notion that you can’t get something from nothing is applicable in the renewable energy industry as well, but we need to think of it as an economic investment over time. If we can get over our instant gratification insistence & expectations which we are too accustomed to, then we can come to realize how every day the sun is giving us huge quantities of energy that is being wasted and converted into destructive end results.

Just think of the amount of solar radiation that is being “wasted” in our urban environments converted to heat as parking lots & asphalt roofs absorb heat in the day, that we fight with air conditioners and more power consumption, then releases it in the night making it impossible to sleep without have the AC cranking. By intercepting the sun’s rays that would be converted to heat in a form we either do not want or cannot use productively, we could cover our roofs with both photovoltaic cells tied to the grid to reduce our need for fossil fuel production during the days, then at night when electricity demands from industry lower, the power plants would supply the electricity, hence diminishing the needs for battery storage. Also on the roofs we could have thermal collectors, that efficiently capture the suns energy before it is wasted as heat we do not want or cannot use, store it tanks similar to a modern hot water heater and supply 80-90% of our domestic hot water needs when averaged over the year.

Most people do not think about how much energy they waste and subsequently pay for, as the power companies do not give rebates for hot water you heat but do not use, do they? Upwards of 30-40% of an average home owners energy bills are for the heating of domestic hot water and keeping it at the high temperature for use at any time. Convert that fact to reality, and much of those costs are paid for something you do not use and it is wasted. Most people have their water temperatures too high, just think of the last time you turned on only the hot water to take a shower. There is enough energy in most areas of the country from solar irradiance, where you could achieve 80% of your home heating & domestic hot water needs from the sun alone.

Street lights we manufactured & installed in Colorado with small wind turbines, a PV panel & batteries completely off the grid.

So let’s be realistic and return to the errant preconception of the prohibitive costs to solar power. If you could reduce your home heating & energy consumption through investing in a system that can convert the sun’s rays to something useful and save 80% of your energy costs through the year, why would you not do it? Oh right, it is too costly!

Oh contrare my good reader. You are thinking of it from the old preconceptions. It is an investment, and what is the biggest investment most average people know of? Their homes, yet they have this wrong idea that they could “invest” in remodeling their kitchen or adding a bedroom that would increase the homes value for resale. Well if the last couple months have shown anything, homes do historically go up in value, but what is the rate of return on a home when you factor in mortgages & interest rates, or a slumping economy? Now if we cannot be certain a home’s value will increase at a rate higher than that of interest charges on a mortgage, while at the same time we know for certain energy prices from fossil fuels will increase and we know what the cost of heating & powering your home from the sun can be calculated relatively simply, we can begin to see if we look at a solar system as an investment, just like we have been mislead to believe our homes are supposed to be, that the rate of return on a solar system is much greater than that of a home investment.

I’ll return in a future post with more details as to how exactly we can accomplish converting the sun’s energy (a free, unlimited resource) into something that is not only useful to us, but also cost effective and over the long term profitable.

T-Solar, a Spanish company whose main investors are the Isolux Group and the regional savings bank Caixanova, opened yesterday a state-of-the-art plant in Orense (Galicia, Northwestern Spain).

T-Solar has invested so far more than 80 million euros ($99.5 million) in this modern plant, that will employ 190 workers and will have a expected turnover in 2009 exceeding 100 million euros.

The factory, with an initial production capacity of 40 MW, produces thin-film amorphous Silicon (a-Si) photovoltaic modules. The production plant is based on the SunFab Thin Film line from Applied Materials  (California). It  will churn out 20 modules an hour in sizes from 1.1m x 1.3m to 2.2m x 2.6m (5.72 square meters or 61.6 square feet).

The nanomanufacturing technology used in the plant reduces the cost of utility-scale PV installations by more than 25%, through automation and improvements in cabling and installation.  The panels need less silicon than standard ones. Plus, they are better suited to building integration because their sizes are adapted to current architectural standards.

T-Solar has pursued a strategy of vertical integration.  In addition to investing in next-generation manufacturing, T-Solar installs and operates its own PV power generation plants.  All the production from the plant will go to 16 solar projects that T-Solar is developing in different Spanish provinces. In a second phase to begin in a  year and a half, new machinery will be added to the existing equipment to improve the performance of each panel. Another layer of crystalline material will be added to the panels, in order to achieve an annual production of 65 MW.  

T-Solar has developed a total of 28 photovoltaic plants to-date, with an installed capacity of 143 MW. Next Wednesday, it will inaugurate  a huge 34 MW solar farm in Arnedo (La Rioja, Spain).

It’s been a pro-solar week in Oregon. German solar maker SolarWorld is set to open its 480,000-square-foot semiconductor plant in Hillsboro today, and Sanyo broke ground at its 861,000-square-foot factory on Wednesday at the Salem (Ore.) Renewable Energy and Technology Park. As we’ve written before, solar manufacturers are moving into Oregon at a brisk pace, thanks in part to the state’s successful Business Energy Tax Credit. But while the new solar facilities may boost clean energy around the world, what’s their impact on Oregon’s energy supply?

Semiconductor manufacturing is an energy intensive business; such facilities can require 20 to 70 MW of power load, according to Tom Guantt, a spokesman for Pacific Power. While that’s a laughably wide range, none of the solar manufacturers were willing to disclose the specific energy footprint of their facilities. Pacific Power’s service territory includes just one of the announced solar manufacturing plants in Oregon — the Peak Sun facility in Millersburg — while Portland General Electric (PGE) is responsible for servicing the other new developments, including the SolarWorld and Sanyo facilities, as well as the Solaicx, XsunX and Spectrawatt factories.

Whether its 20 or 70, a tens-of-megwatts load isn’t easy to for the grid to absorb, especially when it’s concentrated at one site. Much like turning on too many kitchen appliances at once can overtax your home’s circuit breaker, ramping up heavy industrial manufacturing without prior planning would destabilize the local power grid. To avoid this problem, Oregon utilities have had to prepare, by adding new substations, upgrading distribution and transmission lines — and, potentially, building or buying additional generation. (Yes, that means power plants.)

Solar manufacturing isn’t the only factor driving the region’s need for additional power. According to Steve Corson, a spokesperson for PGE, power demand in the region, currently about 2,500 MW, is expected to grow twice as fast as the national average. Because solar manufacturing plays a small role in the state’s growing power demand, it’s likely that utilities’ progress toward meeting the state’s Renewable Portfolio Standard (which requires 25 percent of electric demand to be met by new renewables) will be more than sufficient to cover the additional demand from solar manufacturing. That means the utility can say it will be able to meet increased demand with renewable energy.

New generation aside, the need for infrastructure development is likely to play a bigger role in promoting green collar jobs in the state. Sanyo’s plant, slated to open in October 2009, makes it the first company to sign on to the City of Salem’s Renewable Energy and Technology Park (RETP), an 80-acre parcel of land zoned for industrial uses that had been undeveloped since the city acquired the rights in 1992. To meet anticipated power demand at both the RETP and the nearby Mills Creek industrial park, PGE is developing a new substation, says Rick Scott, urban development director for the City of Salem.

Sanyo’s interest in the location, and PGE’s willingness to develop the substation, could pave the way for future green manufacturing. Scott says the city is currently in talks with two other companies interested in siting green industrial operations in the RETP, and the area is also zoned for research and development operations.

While new development is exciting for Salem, another opportunity is more appealing to utilities, as well as to local economic development officials across the state: reusing existing manufacturing capacity. Oregon, like many states in the U.S., has numerous manufacturing and industrial sites that have been closed over the past few decades. Pacific Power told us in an email “In some cases in the Northwest, high capacity lines are already in place because in the past there were large wood products or other industrial plants in an area.” That infrastructure could be key encouraging new development of solar and other green manufacturing operations.

To that end, Pacific Power is upgrading and reactivating a line near Roseburg, Ore., that used to supply a nickel mine. While the utility didn’t specify who would benefit from that specific upgrade, Guantt wrote that “sites like that could be suitable for new large energy users such as polysilicon manufacturers. And it would be great from an economic development standpoint to bring manufacturing jobs back to these areas.”

We are registered Installers for Southern California Edison. Check us out on the www.gosolarcalifornia.com pages! Call us for your free Solar Site Evaluation and see if you qualify to start saving $money on your electric Bill.

Below is an example of how you can start saving:

 $45,000 > Average Residential System

-$8,600 > State Rebate

-$1000 > Aliso Discount (expires 12/31/08)

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 $35,400 > Your system cost before Federal Solar Tax Credit

-$10,620> Federal Solar Tax Credit (30%)**

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$24,780 TOTAL SYSTEM COST: 45% SAVINGS!! * 

Exp. Property Value Increase of $30,000! TAX FREE!!

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*Example above does not guarantee actual savings which varies by energy usage, system configuration, and locations.    ALISO discount cannot be combined with any other discounts, one discount per system! 

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**Photovoltaic Systems Federal Rebate Program:

Tax Credit Specification: Photovoltaic must provide Electricity for the residence, and must meet applicable fire and electrical code requirement.

Tax Credit: 30% of cost, up to $2,000. After 2009 the $2,000 cap will no longer apply.  (IRS Form 5695)

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 Refer a friend!! If your referral results in the sale of a solar power system, you will receive $200. *This referral amount may not be used towards discounting the price of your own purchase of a solar system from ALISO.

READY TO GO SOLAR????

Call Aliso Today to schedule your free Solar Quote!  949-598-0359

[polldaddy poll=1026688]  More on Proposition 7 to come…

Photovoltaics (PV), also known as solar panels, become increasingly competitive with electric utilities as electricity rates continue to rise. PV becomes cheaper over time while retail electricity (like the kind from your local utility company) becomes more expensive. By 2015, even the cheapest electricity rates in the US will likely be comparable to the cost of renewable solar power.

In the tables below, the orange boxes show the range of costs for solar power, and the colored bars show the current utility rates in various cities across the country.

Here in Hawaii, solar power is already far cheaper than electricity from the local utility. My house runs entirely on solar power, and I estimate a pay back for the initial investment in the PV system of $11,000 to happen within three years of installation. So for the rest of life of the solar power system, which could be another 10 or 15 years, my power is free. In other words, I’ll keep over $2,000 per year in my pocket to invest elsewhere.

Hello. My name is Scott, and I’m an intern. 

It all happened so fast. After moving to Portland, Ore., in April, I landed a job at a restaurant, while continuing to pursue an internship in the agency world. By June, I landed the quintessential position: a paid PR internship with a prominent Portland-area advertising agency. All was going according to plan. The restaurant was constantly busy and the internship provided the perfect wages to set aside into my savings.

As autumn approached, the leaves began to droop along with the stock market. Because my restaurant is a seasonal establishment situated on a lake, the steady crew of lake-goers dissipated. After getting called off every shift this past week, I realized it’s time to quit my restaurant job and find a different one. But where? Who in their right mind is hiring at this point in our economy’s downturn? Oregon lost 17,300 jobs in the last two months. Less people are eating out. My confidence in finding a job in the food service industry is waning.

My current position with the ad agency stays strong, but interning during an economic crisis makes you feel expendable, for purely budgetary reasons. If clients discontinue services, the money stops rolling in. Who needs support-level employees if there’s nothing left to support?

While living rent-free with the ‘rents, like a number of Millennials seem to do, I’m privileged that most of my money is staying intact, considering I wouldn’t be able to rent with the wages I’m not bringing in. As part of one of the largest uninsured populations in America, my yet-to-be-extracted wisdom teeth do a painstaking double-take every time I hear how worse the economy is getting, paired with how awful our health care system has become. While no full-time job (and benefits) seems to be in sight, I realize that my complaints are one of many among a nation of people plagued by the same, if not worse, conditions I’m experiencing. 

On the upside, not all is lost for the nation’s employment pool. Those “green-collar” jobs Obama and others keep mentioning have finally made tangible headway into Oregon’s job market. With the skill set already in place from the survivors of the semiconductor industry, I believe Oregon is going to lead the nation in solar cell manufacturing. Portland is already the “greenest” city according to several publications (and even eastern nations). While I have no intention to join the manufacturing workforce, I think living in Oregon for the next five years (at least) is going to be a stimulating time for the economy, the environment, and the state’s overall morale.

John Krasinski Intern Story

3d-photonic-crystal

A team of researchers at the Spanish High Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) has patented a new type of solar cells whose efficiency is up to 30% higher than conventional solar cells. Their photonic crystal is composed of a nanostructured surface which increases the transmission of light inside the device.

CSIC researcher and project leader, Pablo Aitor Postigo, who works at the Institute of Microelectronics of Madrid (IMM-CSIC), points out the advantages of these cells: “They are more efficient in harnessing the sun’s rays. Current systems can only take advantage of 30% of solar energy to convert it into electricity. Our solar cells will enhance the effectiveness of these systems by up to 30%.”

The techniques used by these scientists to produce the crystal can be applied industrially.  The large-scale manufacture of these new solar cells would have the same cost as conventional ones.  In addition, they require less semiconductor material to get the same amount of energy.

Postigo has worked together with several researchers from the Institute of Microelectronics of Madrid (CSIC) and the Solar Energy Institute and the University of Pavia in Italy.

Image via WikipediaNowadays green energy, CO2 emission, pollution, global warming, are on top of mind of a lot of people. And not only people, but also governments. Nowadays they are giving financial incentives to people who put solar panels on their roof.
Does this make sense ?
First of all with photovoltaic cells (PVC’s) you produce clean energy: no CO2 emission. But what about the fabrication of the equipment ? According to this source, negligible amounts of waste and pollution are produced. So that’ OK. But what about when they totally used after about 30 years? How to dispose of old PVC’s? Apparently this is still a problem to be resolved !

There is another drawback to PVC’s : they are designed to capture sun rays, so they capture the energy of the sun and keep it on earth, thus adding to global warming. Perhaps instead you should paintyour roof white or put mirrors on it, to reflect the solar energy back into space.
OK, it is all about producing energy without blasting more CO2 into the atmosphere.
Now about investing in PVC’s. Purely financially it is not a hell of an investment. You put your money into it, and it never produces enough electricity to get you your money back augmented with a decent gain (you should get more out of an investment than you put into it!). Only when the government also puts its money into it in the form of financial incentives it becomes interesting.
I is allways a better investment to avoid consuming energy ! Insulation of your house, biking, taking the train in stead of sitting alone in a car, eating fruits that are grown in your own country, etc … are much better things to do for our environment.

Is it not to soon to install PVC’s ?
A couple of days ago I read about a 12-year old boy that invented a revolutionary solar cell. OK it has still to be produced, but would it not been worth wile to wait and than put something much better on your roof ?

And not only solar energy panels and other energy producing devices are getting better, but also the energy consuming devices are using less and less energy. So why look for ways to produce more enery ? Let us rather focus on not consuming energy in stead of producing it.

And about CO2 : getting CO2 out of the atmosphere is the best thing to do : plant trees wherever you can and let them grow.

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• News: Dark Side of Solar Cells Brightens

Solar Power/Energy Counterpoint

Solar Power/Energy refers to the utilization of the radiant energy from the Sun. It refers more specifically to the conversion of sunlight into electricity, either by photovoltaics or concentrating solar thermal devices. The amount of solar energy reaching the surface of the Earth is so vast that in one year it is about twice as much as will ever be obtained from all of the Earth’s non-renewable resources of coal, oil, natural gas, and mined uranium combined.

As of 2007, the total installed capacity of solar hot water systems is approximately 154 GW. China is the world leader in their deployment with 70 GW installed as of 2006. Israel is the per capita leader in the use of solar hot water systems with 90% of homes using them.

Photovoltaics (PV) has mainly been used to power small and medium-sized applications, from the calculator powered by a single solar cell to off-grid homes powered by a photovoltaic array. Germany, Japan, US, and Spain have become the leaders in the PV market. It is expected that by 2009 over 90% of commercial photovoltaics, installed in the United States, will be installed using a power purchase agreement. Grid parity (cost), the point at which photovoltaic electricity is equal to or cheaper than grid power, is achieved first in areas with abundant sun and high costs for electricity such as in California, Hawaii, and Japan. It is not common knowledge, but George W. Bush has set 2015 as the date for grid parity in the USA. Here are some examples of large-scale photovoltaic power plants and here are some more.

Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) systems use lenses or mirrors and tracking systems to focus a large area of sunlight into a small beam. The concentrated light is then used as a heat source for a conventional power plant.

Storage is an important issue in the development of solar energy because modern energy systems usually assume continuous availability of energy. Solar energy is not available at night, and the performance of solar power systems is affected by unpredictable weather patterns; therefore, storage media or back-up power systems must be used.

Solar installations in recent years have also largely begun to expand into residential areas, with governments offering incentive programs to make “green” energy a more economically viable option. The program allows residential homeowner installations to sell the energy they produce back to the electrical power grid. It has now been stated by the chairman of the 2008 European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference that photovoltaics can cover all the world energy demand.

The Solar Electric Power Association made a statement concerning the historical announcement that “The Pacific Gas and Electric Utility (PG&E) will develop two photovoltaic (PV) power plants equivalent to almost double the amount of current U.S. grid-connected PV capacity”.

Florida Power and Light (FP&L) unveils the plans to build Florida’s first large-scale solar thermal power plant (CPS), one of the largest such plants in the world.  It also announced new solar energy projects that include the world’s largest photovoltaic solar plant and first “hybrid” energy center, coupling solar thermal technology with an existing combined-cycle generation unit.

As can be seen from the brief “Solar Power/Energy Counterpoint” facts article, solar energy is becoming one of the most viable alternatives for electric power generation. We don’t hear much about it, but it has the possibilities of playing an important part in the new energy resources available without much say-so from known government programs (except for insentives).

Some more interesting articles:

1. A Solar Grand Plan.
2. Are solar photovoltaics just to costly?
3. Solar Cell Production Jumps 50 Percent in 2007.
4. Solar Power: The Pros and Cons of Solar Power.

A COMBINATION of energy-saving factors to slash consumption and a cutting-edge solar technology called photovoltaics can add up to what every boss wants – a zero-energy building.

Zero energy means the building is sustained with renewable sources of power, which saves hugely on costs over the long term.

It is a Holy Grail but highly achievable, said Mr Poul Kristensen, managing director of IEN Consultants, a Kuala Lumpur-based company that advises clients on green buildings.

He told the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies yesterday about office buildings in Malaysia that would typically consume about 200 to 300kw of energy per square metre a year.

That can be cut to about 100kw by using energy-saving measures such as daylighting, which uses tubes and reflectors to illuminate a room using natural light.

Energy-efficient server rooms, lighting, office equipment and proper insulation to prevent unnecessary heat loss and wastage can also cut power use.

With the reduced consumption, the building can then rely on solar panels integrated in the roof and walls to provide the rest of the needed energy.

The PTM Zero Energy Office of the Malaysia Energy Centre in Selangor is one example of a building aiming at zero energy consumption.

It has already reduced energy use to 35 to 40kw per sq m a year and is still fine-tuning its systems.

Zero-energy buildings have been developed in Canada, the United States, Germany and Switzerland.

Singapore’s Building and Construction Authority is also aiming to turn an existing block of its academy into one powered by solar panels.

The task comes with challenges. Constructing an energy-efficient building can increase costs by up to 21 per cent. The figure jumps to 45 per cent if photovoltaics technology is included.

‘It might be more expensive at first, but after the payback time, which is between five and 10 years, the cost savings are for a lifetime,’ said Mr Kristensen.

Source : Straits Times – 11 Sep 2008