Tag Archives: Solar Power

Green Building Taking Off in Hospitality, Retail Industries

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Green building is taking off in the hospitality and retail industries, […]  This year, retail owners that are building green for over half of their projects rose to 38%, up from just 18% in 2011. That’s expected to rise to 52% by 2015.

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

>”Green building has taken such hold in the industry that even sectors with unique challenges, such as retail and hospitality, are making stronger investments,” says Harvey Bernstein, vice president at McGraw Hill Construction. “Clearly the benefits that owners are reporting are key reasons for their green building investments, and as they find better ways to measure those impacts and quantify the value to their sales velocity and to the well-being of their staff, customers and guests, we expect even more rapid engagement in green.”

While lower operating costs are the most frequently reported reason for going green (66% of retailers, 73% of hotels), other factors are also considered very important in their decision-making process:

Utility rebates – Protecting/enhancing brand – just as important as costs for hotels

Improving ROI  […]Energy efficiency is still a key goal, recycling and waste management are also critically important. A strong majority say they require green practices from suppliers, especially on waste handling (75%). <

See on www.sustainablebusiness.com

Utilities fear what they cannot control with community solar – PV-Tech

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Utilities love solar. Or at least they love utility-scale solar, i.e. installations they can own or control through power purchase agreements.

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

>”People like solar and the utility can play a really useful role in bringing solar into a community. But you do have to deal with some issues in terms of how to take advantage of the tax incentives. That can really change the cost of the programme. To take advantage of the tax code, the system has to be located on your property.

[…]

“We’ve seen some prices as low as 5c-6c per kWh once the tax depreciation and tax advantages have been taken by an entity that has that tax appetite. For those who are subscribing this is a resource for the future and many years out that would be a hedge.”

Ultimately, one of the biggest appeals of community solar is the value proposition and that does not always come down to the cheapest rate: communities want power sourced as locally as possible. Green pricing failed to gain mass appeal 10 years ago because consumers were being sold ‘clean power’ generated by wind two states away.<

See on www.pv-tech.org

Integrating Building into the Smart Grid

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It will take time to get from point A, today’s grid and building technologies and power markets to point B, a Smart Grid with intelligent buildings and transactive markets, but it can be done.

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

>Transactive energy will play a critical defining role in grid modernization and shaping the Smart Grid.  Buildings, as noted in last week’s article consume 40% of the nation’s energy.  And while building owners can justify purchase decisions on energy savings as well as sustainability values, there’s another crucial factor for building owners to invest in technologies that reduce energy use and deliver self-generation.  That reason is to address the increasing vulnerability of the electrical grid to momentary and sustained power outages to both natural and human causes.

Buildings and their occupants are impacted by grid-related power outages.  The negative impacts range from reduced work productivity and decreased occupant safety and health to reductions in lifestyle standards.  Just like real estate values are higher for green buildings with LEED recognition, in the future, buildings that are grid-hardened may command premium prices because they preserve delivery of services regardless of grid status.  It is a compelling new variable in value propositions for tenants and occupants.<

See on theenergycollective.com

China Invests Billions in International Renewable Energy Projects

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A Significant Win for Clean Energy in Colorado

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Today Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper signed a measure to expand and improve the state’s Renewable Energy Standard that will drive clean energy investment, increase jobs and renewable project development in rural Colorado.

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

>As a result of the move by Xcel and the Governor’s signature on SB 252, Colorado will have an additional 1,000 MW of renewable energy or a 40 percent increase from the current amount of installed renewable energy in the state.

The announcement pulled the rug from under fossil fuel funded opponents of SB 252 who had argued renewable energy is too expensive.

The bill, co-sponsored by Senate President John Morse and House Speaker Mark Ferrandino, will also expand opportunities for distributed generation and eliminates unnecessary preferences for in-state generation.<

See on switchboard.nrdc.org

101-Year-Old Toledo Museum of Art Building Goes Temporarily “Off the Grid” After 20 Years of Implementing Green Initiatives – absolutearts.com

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Museum briefly becomes a provider, rather than user, of electricity

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

>TOLEDO, OHIO–On Tuesday, May 21 the Toledo Museum of Art achieved a milestone in its 20-year effort to reduce energy consumption: its 101-year-old Beaux Arts main building stopped drawing power from the electrical grid and actually started returning power to the system. The ongoing process, which incorporates using sustainable energy practices such as solar power, energy-efficient lighting, micro turbines and chillers, has resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars in cost savings over the years.

[…]

Bernhard cited lighting as a good example. The first generation of LED lights weren’t suitable for illuminating and protecting art, so they were bypassed at the time. Now that the technology has dramatically improved, LED fixtures are now being introduced into the galleries, where lights frequently burn out from continual usage. The new lights not only save energy but last much longer, decreasing labor costs associated with the constant replacement of bulbs. The lighting in the renovated lot is also provided by new LED fixtures, which provide greater illumination while using less electricity

Bintz and Bernard also added new micro turbines and chillers to the power plant at TMA’s world-famous TMA Glass Pavilion during last year’s energy upgrade. The heat from the building’s working glass hot shop is recycled into the rest of the building during cold months. While generating electricity, the micro turbine waste heat is used to heat the building in the colder months and generate chilled water for air conditioning in the summer.<

See on www.absolutearts.com

Go geothermal to maximize energy efficiency

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A huge leap in energy conservation, and undoubtedly the most innovative of all energy saving tactics has its origins in the earth itself

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

>This geothermal system provides a quiet environment with a consistent temperature throughout the house or building; efficiently comfortable in the winter, and cool in the summer. The heating or cooling mode can be changed with a simple switch on the indoor thermostat. With virtually no use of fossil fuel, costs for heating and cooling for a typical 4,000-square-foot home can run as low as $2 per day/$60 per month.<

See on www.milforddailynews.com

DPR Construction’s Phoenix Office First Net-Zero Energy Commercial Building in Arizona

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PHOENIX, May 17, 2013 (BUSINESS WIRE) — DPR Construction (DPR), a national technical builder specializing in highly complex and sustainable projects, announced today the achievement of net-zero energy consumption in its Phoenix Regional Office.

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

>The renovated 16,533-square-foot office building is located in Phoenix’s Discovery Triangle at the corner of 44th Street and Van Buren. In less than 10 months, the team, which included national design firm SmithGroupJJR and global consulting firm DNV KEMA Energy and Sustainability, researched, designed, permitted, and built a highly-efficient, modern workplace with a number of innovative sustainability features including:

— 87 operable windows working in tandem with the energy monitoring system to open and close based on the relative indoor and outdoor temperatures

— 87-foot zinc clad solar chimney which creates a convection current to release hot air out of the building while drawing cooler air in

— Shower towers that act as evaporative coolers by working together with the operable windows and solar chimney to regulate building temperatures

— Twelve eight-foot Isis(R) Big Ass(R) Fans that enable free air flow within the office

— 82 strategically positioned Solatubes(R) that nearly eliminate the need for artificial daytime lighting […]<

See on www.marketwatch.com

US team’s battery ‘breakthrough’

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Researchers believe they have found a way to radically shrink the size of batteries while offering the same amount of power and faster recharges than at present.

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

>The scientists’ “breakthrough” involved finding a new way to integrate the anode and cathode at the microscale.

“The battery electrodes have small intertwined fingers that reach into each other,” project leader Prof William King told the BBC.

“That does a couple of things. It allows us to make the battery have a very high surface area even though the overall battery volume is extremely small.

A cross-section of the battery reveals the 3D-design of the research project’s anodes and cathodes

“And it gets the two halves of the battery very close together so the ions and electrons do not have far to flow.

“Because we’ve reduced the flowing distance of the ions and electrons we can get the energy out much faster.”<

See on www.bbc.co.uk

New Study: Distributed Solar Energy Provides $34 Million in Benefits to Arizona Ratepayers | SEIA

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WASHINGTON, DC – A study released today shows that distributed solar generation (DG) and net energy metering will provide Arizona Public Service (APS) customers with $34 million in annual benefits.

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

>The study found that for each dollar of cost, DG provides $1.54 worth of benefits to APS customers. The net benefits for APS customers will amount to $34 million per year beginning in 2015. Benefits include savings on expensive and polluting conventional power and power plants; reduced investments in transmission and distribution infrastructure; reduced electricity lost during transportation over power lines, as distributed solar power is generated and consumer locally; and savings on the cost of meeting renewable energy requirements.

“This study clearly shows that solar offers concrete net benefits to all APS ratepayers, regardless of whether or not they have installed solar” said Carrie Cullen Hitt, senior vice president of state affairs at the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA). “It’s essential that we keep smart policies like net metering in place so that Arizona can continue to benefit from its abundant solar resources.”<

See on www.seia.org