Category Archives: Alternative Energy

DIY Solar Power

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Homemade solar thermal panel

Now that winter’s just around the corner, though you might be hard-pressed to believe it with how fickle Mother Nature’ been of late, you’re probably starting to dread the heating bills that accompany it. But just because it’s getting cold doesn’t mean you cannot take advantage of free energy from the sun.

For most of us, it’s probably too late to orient our homes so most windows are on the southern face, or plant deciduous trees on the same side of the house, and evergreens on the windward.1 But there are still plenty of ways to take advantage of this underused resourced, not the least of which is leaving your curtains open during the day, especially if you have modern, low-emissivity (“low-e”), insulated windows.

Another interesting way to use the sun is through solar thermal technologies. Although these systems typically garner less attention than photovoltaics, they can work quite well at our latitude, either as a space or water heater. Commercial systems such as these solar hot air panels are actually quite economical at approximately $1,500, but it’s also possible to build your own. There are a number of plans available online, of varying complexity, from soda cans & spray paint to sloping window-mounted affairs. With a one-square-yard device you could provide as much heat as an electric baseboard or portable heater.23

1. The deciduous trees shield the windows from intense solar exposure in the summer, but permit light to enter the home once the drop their leaves in fall. The conifers remain bushy year-round, acting as a windbreak and thereby reducing heat loss.

2. Grey body calculation.

3. A simple but imperfect test to determine if a sheet of acrylic will let some of your captured sunshine escape is to see if a remote will work behind it. If the remote does not work, then the sheet blocks infrared, which is what you want.

Results from the Smart Grid

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IBM-smart-gridFor the last six months, IBM has been running  a Smart Grid test in the town of Fayettevile, North Carolina. First results show the average Smart Grid home reduces their energy usage by a surprising 15%.

The reasons offered start with the companies involved (IBM & Consent) who claim; “If it can be measured, it can be managed.” This concept has been around for a number of years, but it needs further detail to understand exactly why they called it the Smart Grid and why it could be the Holy Grail of energy efficiency.

Each house on the Smart Grid gives owners the ability to set daily use profiles, check real-time energy consumption, create monthly bill targets and cycle off appliances during peak load times–all through a standard Internet connection. One of the things the Smart Grid allows you to see–and correct–is the surprising amount of ‘vampire power’ a house consumes. Your computers,  air conditioners, HDTVs, and water heater all use energy even when they’re switched off. By either unplugging these devices or cycling down power supply when you are not in the house or asleep, you can immediately cut your electricity use by least 10%.

Of course, you don’t need to wait for your local utility or IBM to put you on the Smart Grid before you start reducing your energy bills and saving money. For the first day of fall, here’s some tips for winterizing your home.  And some low/no cost steps you can take for year-round energy efficiency.

Building a House on your property? That’s so 20th Century!

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St_paul_homeIf any of our readers have the opportunity to build on a vacant lot, we recommend they visit this page at the Jetson Green website.

This week, they are featuring a story on David Schmit, a Minneapolis photographer who decided he wanted a home in the suburbs with the design features of his downtown rental loft. After some investigation Schmit found a company called Hive Modular that supplies prefab homes. Actually prefab home parts which are then shipped, assembled and fitted out on site.

If you’re thinking trailer home, make sure you scroll down to view some of the interior shots of Schmit’s home after it was finished and furnished.

If you want to read the whole story behind the approval, construction and siting of the house, visit the Midwest Home website.

Anyone still reading this article probably wants to know the green angle. Even though the owner originally chose Hive Modular becasue they could provide a loft-like space on his suburban lot, the construction of these homes off-site means many efficiencies in material usage are realized. Low cost per square foot construction leaves money on the table for incorporating other sustainable living features. Schmit chose locally harvested woods and pre-installed insulation to keep heating costs as low as possible during the long Minnesota winters.

It’s easy to see how other energy efficiency technology could also be incorporated into this home-from solar panels on the flat roof to Energy Star double glazed windows that will help maintain the house envelope temperature all year long.

Dollars 4 Dishwashers

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There were a number of issues with the “Cash for Clunkers” program, including excessive paperwork and bureaucracy, poor planning, etc. Even though the program was touted as having environmental benefits, and not merely another handout to big business, there were questions as to the significance of these impacts before the program ended. Soon there will be another rebate program, which has thus far received little attention, and has apparently been dubbed by some “Dollars for Dishwashers” to disparage it. The outcome of this enery star appliance rebate “program” will be more interesting to watch since each state is responsible for developing a plan to disperse its awarded funds. Massachusetts was awarded $6 million by the DoE, and rebates should become available in 4 to 6 weeks. Keep your eyes open, and get ready to build a super-efficient fridge… I know I’ll be bugging my landlord soon enough.

Cooler coolers

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Having a tough time getting you or your loved ones to not stand in front of the fridge with the door open? While behavioral changes are almost always the cheapest and most efficient means of reducing consumption, there are some interesting technical solutions available in this area. You could try installing a curtain (opting for the thinner Mylar/polyester over PVC), or purchasing a chest refrigerator. This little known refrigerator format has the advantage of keeping the cool air inside (it sinks and stays trapped) while also providing a secondary work surface in a crowded kitchen.

New fridge not in the budget? Well, you might be interested in this oldie but goodie which has recently sprung up again: “convert” a chest freezer into a chest refrigerator for about $60. Your custom fridge could end up running a whole year for the cost of one month of power for a typical refrigerator! (140 kWh/yr reported energy use, vs. 144 kWh/mo energy use for 17.5 ft3 frostless refrigerator/freezer) Of course, one disadvantage to this format is that you’ll need a separate freezer, but you should still end up far ahead.

Biomimicry- The next green revolution?

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Wood Ant Hill

Wood Ant Hill

The current green revolution looks to renewable energy and green products to replace the polluting industries of the modern era.  What is often left out of the discussion is our relationship with the living biosphere and how our technology much revolutionize itself to not just being low-carbon, but operate under the principles of how nature organizes itself.  Janine Benyus, a scientist and founder of the company Biomimicry Guild, has been looking to nature to develop technologies that maximize efficiency prinicples inherent in the natural world.  This new movement, labeled biomimicry, asks homo sapiens sapiens to tap into the intellengence of nature in our design principles.  The natural world is not seen as a dumb organic machine, but rather a dynamic force that intelligently adapts to environmental changes to produce rhobust living ecosystems.

Humans are not the first and only species to be master builders, tool users, or farmers.  For over 3.8 billion years, nature has evolved eligant solutions to some of the basic ecological challenges we are struggling with today.  In the new online resource, www.asknature.org, it provides innovative minds with life’s best ideas to help develop sustainable technologies that are conductive to life.   On this free open source website, one can research a design question and find a list of how nature solves the issue.  For example, under the category of storing energy, there is a list of 33 species that adopt strategies to maximize energy use.

In the case of the wood ant, they build a nest with numerous holes for ventilation and entrances. At night and in cold weather the ants plug the holes to keep heat in. The workers also keep the slope of the nest at the right angle to obtain maximum amount of solar heat. The ants bring extra warmth into their nests as live heaters by basking in the sun in large numbers and taking the heat energy collected in their bodies into the nest.  Can our homes be built in ways to maximize existing natural resources and store and cool the building without destroying our atmosphere?  Passive solar design is one quick example of building techniques that blend old and new knowledge into our building design principles– with the potential of creating net zero energy use homes.

I believe this presents a paradigm shift for humanity, in which humans are not separate from the natural world but part of an intellegent ecosystem full of other species that have skills and wisdom to share with us.  To learn more about Biomimicry I recommend watching a talk by Janine Benyus at http://www.ted.com/talks/janine_benyus_biomimicry_in_action.html.

More (solar) power in Western Mass.

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Solar Panel

A proposal by the Western Massachusetts Electric Co. (WMECO) to build up to 6 megawatts of solar photovoltaic power in its service area was approved August 12th by The Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities.  The utility provides power to roughly 200,000 residents in Western Mass, specifically the counties of Hampden, Hampshire, Franklin and Berkshire county.   Approval was received after applying under Massachusetts’s Green Communities Act, an Act that allows utilities to own and operate solar generating facilities up to 50 megawatts.  Utility revenues will be used to fund the project, and WMECO agreed to spread those charges out over a number of years.  The project is set for completion and full operation by 2012.

In the New England publication Mass High Tech, DPU Chairman Paul Hibbard was quoted, “Today’s action is consistent with Gov. Patrick’s pursuit of a robust solar energy industry in Massachusetts.   It moves the Commonwealth closer to the governor’s goal of 250 megawatts of solar power by 2017 while protecting ratepayers by spreading out the cost of financing WMECO’s solar ownership program.”  This is great news for Western Massachusetts and serves as an example for other communities in the commonwealth.

4×10<8×5?

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Spring Forward A little over a year ago Utah adopted a 4-day work week for state employees, to combat rising energy costs. While energy costs have come down, the policy has remained in effect, resulting in a 13% reduction in energy use. This puts them well on the way to their goal of a 20% reduction by 2015. Should other locations follow suit? It’s an intriguing proposition, but dependent upon season and locale. One of the major contributions to savings in Utah has been the shifting of work hours from blistering mid-day heat on Fridays, to cooler mornings and evenings of other days; it’s a desert and cools down relatively rapidly once the sun is down. A similar program in Massachusetts should see some reduction in summer energy use, but could increase heating demand in the winter. It is interesting to note that these shifts, and the incumbent savings, are not unlike the complicated story of Daylight Saving Time

MA receives $71M for efficiency, with $106M to follow

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American Recovery and Reinvestment Act The Bay State has been awarded $22 million in the Department of Energy’s Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy program, a little less than all other awards in New England combined; ME, RI and VT received $11M, $9.5M and $8.8M respectively.

Massachusetts will use its State Energy Program (SEP) Recovery Act funds to advance energy efficiency across the state, especially in the building environment. The Governor’s Energy Task Force identified a number of energy efficiency retrofit projects at public facilities with potential for energy and cost savings. The state intends to leverage SEP funds for these projects by using performance contracts wherever possible.

Additionally, Massachusetts will direct Recovery Act funds to help demonstrate solutions to a number of long-standing challenges in improving building energy performance which provides the opportunity to transform future energy efficiency efforts in the state. For instance, the state will provide funding for projects that will move toward the development of a net-zero energy building, along with examining ways to reduce the state’s petroleum usage by expanding energy efficiency opportunities to people and businesses that use oil and propane for heating.

The State also recently received $49M in Recovery Act funds to weatherize approximately 17,00 homes over the next three years, while ramping up a Clean Energy Center to train and support a growing energy-efficiency workforce in the state. Under the program, Massachusetts is increasing the number of auditors and other professionals that will be needed to meet the increased demand for weatherization activities. More than 25 additional auditors have already been hired, along with new private-sector employees that will work with local organizations responsible for weatherization work.

After demonstrating successful implementation of its SEP plan, the state will receive more than $27 million in additional funding, for a total of nearly $55 million. $61 million are available once the weatherization program has program has proven successful.

(Adapted from EPA Region I’s “Community Energy Challenge Monthly Update,” Vol. 10; DOE press release; Recap