Archive for the ‘Solar / Renewables’ Category
March 18, 2013
We often preach “reduce first” as the sensable approach for homeowners who are looking at installing expensive renewable energy. It just makes sense. If it costs a lot to install solar panels, make your home more efficient first reducing the number you need, and then install less of them! Same goes for heating and cooling equipment. Reduce the need for cooling or heating and install a smaller unit.
As reported by KCET, one town in California may be looking at mandatory solar panels on every roof. Lancaster CA, a city of 160,000, is one of the top three cities for generating solar. Clearly it’s an area that has succeeded with solar as you would expect in such a sunny place.
Using solar to help reduce energy costs for lighting, water heating, and air conditioning is all well and good, but there are some simple steps to take first. Improvements such as adding efficient lighting, reducing air leaks and increasing insulation go a long way and cost far less. Our GreenHomes America folks in Fresno, Hayward, San Jose, Los Banos, and San Diego, know that, how a home performs matters a great deal, and they know solar too.
I vote for mandatory common sense with a side order of solar!
Thanks,
Jason
image from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun
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Tags:air-sealing, Califonia, common sense, Fresno, GreenHomes America, Hayward, insulation, KCET, Lancaster, Los Banos, reduce, San Diego, San Jose, solar, solar panels, solar power
Posted in Air Conditioning, Air-Sealing, Energy / Efficiency / Renewables, Solar / Renewables | Leave a Comment »
May 14, 2012
A few weeks back I touched on some of the hidden costs in our home (http://blog.greenhomesamerica.com/2012/04/12/fixes-for-hidden-costs-reveal-hidden-benefits/). There is a tie between our houses and our cars and energy use.
Fixing up your home could even help you drive for free. The Florida solar energy center created this great video:
The benefits of home performance improvements are clear and widespread. You can be more comfortable, safer, and healthier and save money. Money you can put elsewhere, such as towards the expense of driving with an electric vehicle. What I think is important here is that this isn’t just for Florida. Florida is of course a great place for solar power being the “Sunshine State”, but this isn’t really part of the formula for most homeowners. Generating electricity can be done in many ways, and energy efficient homes are the key to being able to drive for free.
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Tags:car, electric vehicles, Florida, free, home, savings, sunshine
Posted in Efficiency, Electricity Use, Energy / Efficiency / Renewables, Environment, Green, GreenHomes America, Home, Homeowners, News, Oil / Coal / Natural Gas, Solar / Renewables, Technology, Utility Bills | Leave a Comment »
March 20, 2012
It’s that time of year again, and although we have written about Energy Efficiency tax credits for 2011 before, if you had work done this past year, it might be time to review. You can also go to our learning center for solutions to common problems we fix in homes just like yours, as well as links to our franchise locations; they can provide details about incentives available in their area.
Many of the federal tax credits ended in 2011, but not all of them. What will continue for 2012, are credits for some renewable energy systems. Solar water heating and photovoltaic systems, small wind systems, and geothermal heat pumps, are all eligible measures through 2016. If you are thinking of alternatives, consider our interactive online home to get a better sense of whether or not these types of improvements are really what you need this year.
Alternative energy systems can be expensive, and it often makes the most sense to install them in homes that are very efficient from the start. You might be surprised by what some simple measures can save you money. Tax credit or not, insulation, air sealing and efficient heating and hot water systems can pay for themselves in short order. Simple measures that cost less and save you more!
Thanks,
Jason
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Tags:$1500, $500, 10%, 2010 tax credit, 2011 energy tax credit, 2011 tax change, air conditioner, boiler, energy-efficiency tax credit, federal, furnace, home energy, home improvement, home star, insulation, IRS, rebates, tax credit extension, windows
Posted in Energy / Efficiency / Renewables, Energy Geeks / Energy Policy, GreenHomes America, Rebates and Incentives, Solar / Renewables | 3 Comments »
May 1, 2011
Energy-efficiency and renewable energy are important not to make you feel good. They enhance our capability. This forum on energy security hosted by Deputy Energy Secretary Daniel Poneman and Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn explains how, with a focus on military capability. But we can apply the same logic at many levels, national, state, and local.
And in our own homes. Energy-efficiency obviously saves energy. But done properly, it is also inextricably linked to comfort, safety, and durability of homes–and these benefits often outweigh the energy savings and the project costs. It’s bigger than just energy, and that’s how you should think about it.
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Tags:clean energy, Daniel Poneman, energy security, energy-efficiency, forum on energy security, Jane Harmon, William Lynn
Posted in Energy / Efficiency / Renewables, Energy Geeks / Energy Policy, Solar / Renewables | 1 Comment »
January 29, 2011
Thanks to GreenHomes America’s Home Performance Training Manager, Jason Todd for passing along this photo which begs a few questions. When we’re looking at home energy, we like to focus on energy efficiency before we starting adding on renewable energy sources like solar and wind. As Brett Knox likes to repeat “Reduce before You Produce”. This picture suggests that someone may have taken another path.
We’ve certainly talked a lot about icicles and ice damming here. And the summary version is they are not good and indicate you’re wasting energy and money. The snow melt patterns on the roof and the icicles suggest that this house is losing a lot of heat through it’s attic and roof.
The cost to correct this (with good air-sealing and insulation details) on most homes is generally less than the cost of a solar hot water system as pictured here (partially buried under snow in the center of the photo). And the energy savings, carbon reductions, and other benefits, are typically greater with the efficiency measures than with this system. Further, correcting the heat loss problem helps prevent the possible roof and structural damage that can result from ice build up. This is a case where the economic, environmental, and comfort advantage of efficiency make a lot more sense than starting with solar.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m a fan of solar, and we install it. Solar hot water makes sense for a lot of people, and it is a great entree into renewables. Most of the time, though, renewable energy makes the most sense AFTER you’ve taken the low hanging fruit offered by energy-efficiency. Efficiency First!
[BTW, regarding solar hot water systems, in many cases I prefer the flat-plate collectors show in this video, over the evacuated tube collectors pictured above. Flat-plate collectors tend to be less expensive, more durable, and we've seen fewer issues up north with snow building up and inhibiting the collector. Conversely, a lot of people report that snow collects around the nooks and crannies of the evacuated tubes and doesn't shed off easily.]
Thanks,
Mike
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Tags:energy-efficiency, GreenHomes, solar, icicles, ice damming, solar hot water, renewables, solar thermal, Efficiency First, video, ice on roof, Brett Knox, Jason Todd, picture
Posted in Insulation, Solar / Renewables, Energy / Efficiency / Renewables, Air-Sealing | 3 Comments »
September 15, 2010
In his last post Mike touched on a very important issue: When you talk about going ‘green’ with energy there are two sides to the coin, generation and efficiency.
Generating green energy from renewable sources such as wind, solar, tide and nuclear (depending on which side of the aisle you sit on you may or may not agree that nuclear should be part of the mix) is a wonderful goal. Make no mistake, as a nation we should be diversifying our energy sources and moving away from fossil fuels, but the other side of the coin is equally, if not more important.
Energy efficiency can stretch our precious resources further, and it is something we can all contribute to today. We don’t need an environmental impact assessment to air-seal and insulate our homes. And we certainly don’t need an act of Congress to put on a sweater in the winter. All we need is personal motivation and a little foresight.
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Tags:Efficiency First, renewable energy
Posted in Energy / Efficiency / Renewables, Green, Solar / Renewables, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
September 1, 2010
Scott Adams’ WSJ article continues to keep me thinking… in it he talks about the solar photovoltaic array he installed on his roof, and his disappointment with the results, or rather the lack thereof. According to Wikipedia, Scott lives in Pleasanton, California. If you’ve ever been to Pleasanton you’ll know that it is a fairly sunny place with a pleasant climate (perhaps why it’s called Pleasanton). A photovoltaic array probably seemed like a good idea. An even better, and less expensive, idea might have been to install a solar hot water system on the roof.
Solar hot water can be a great entree into renewable energy
Pleasanton has an average temperature of about 63 degrees Fahrenheit, which means the water that comes out of the taps is around that temperature. This is because water pipes are buried a few feet below the surface of the ground, where daily fluctuations are negligible and seasonal effects are minimal due to the insulation afforded by the soil. If you want to know the average temperature where you live, stick a thermometer in a glass of tap water (taken after the faucet has been flowing for about a minute), it should be fairly close in the lower latitudes of the continental US. If you live up north you will probably notice some seasonal effects (i.e. your tap water is a little cooler in winter and a little warmer in summer).
The upshot of this is that in Pleasanton homeowners typically use fossil fuels to heat water from ~63 degrees to the temperature of choice for clothes washing, dishwashing and showering, somewhere around 100 degrees. Solar hot water lets the sun to do some of the hard work – heating the water from 63 degrees to say, 90 degrees – and relies on fossil fuels to kick in for the final push to ~100 degrees. In this example the sun has done almost three quarters of the work, which would reduce your expenditure on water heating by almost three quarters.
Solar hot water can reduce water heating expenditure by nearly 100% in favorable regions in the summer months. In Pleasanton we would expect annual saving to be on the order of ~70 – 75% of water heating costs. Given that 14 – 25 % of energy consumed in the typical home is used to heat water, this could result in significant savings.
Of course the suitability of your house for a solar hot water system depends on many factors and only a qualified professional, such as those at GreenHomes America, can tutor you on the best options for your building. Having said that, here is a link to a quick video tutorial on solar hot water from our V.P. Mike Rogers.
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Tags:energy savings, energy-efficiency, solar, solar hot water, solar thermal
Posted in Solar / Renewables, Water Heaters / Hot Water | Leave a Comment »
June 21, 2010
There’s some chatter, including in this weekend’s NY Times, about a Massachusetts Forest Watch report calling biomass energy a “false solution”. Many in the biomass industry and others refute that study. I’m going to stand somewhere in the middle. Biomass energy is likely to be part of the solution to our energy needs. It certainly is in the city where I live in Burlington, VT, where the McNeil generator is a big part of our energy equation. Biomass will be one plank of a good intermediate energy policy. On the other hand, it isn’t a panacea, and the energy we’d create from burning trees and plant matter isn’t going to satisfy our energy needs–at least not the way we consume right now. And we certainly saw an impact in food prices when we start selling food crops for fuel. What’s the alternative?
Not really an alternative as much as a starting point is energy-efficiency. Regardless uf how we produce energy–biomass, Gulf oil, nuclear, coal, solar, wind, hydro, or a generator attached to a bicycle–these less energy we use, the easier it is to produce it. The less energy we waste, the less energy we use. This is true at the macro scale for the country as a whole just as it applies in the micro scale down to individual homes. In homes, we can gain efficiency while actually improving comfort and the durability of the home (do it right!). When our clients ask for solar–and we do install solar–we’re happy to oblige, but we point them to energy-efficiency as the first step and the way to get more results for less.
So biomass or not, think efficiency first.
Thanks,
Mike
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Tags:biomass, Burlington, coal, Efficiency First, energy policy, energy-efficiency, McNeil Generator, solar energy
Posted in Energy / Efficiency / Renewables, Environment, News, Solar / Renewables | Leave a Comment »
May 25, 2010
Amory Lovins and the Rocky Mountain Institute present its business driven iniative “Reinventing Fire” to wean the U.S. off fossil fuel by 2050. Why? Because it makes sense! They’ve put up a splash video introduction. Of course, I key in on the building retrofit portion. While they talk about the Empire State Building, the same principles apply at smaller scale in residential buildings, from single family homes to larger multifamily buildings. Energy-efficiency. Renewable energy. The more you save, the more money you have left for your kids’ college education, and for a cold beer on a hot day. So much room for improvement means a big opportunity to improve!
Thanks,
Mike
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Tags:Amory Lovins, energy-effificiency, Reinventing Fire, renewable energy, Rocky Mountain Institute
Posted in Energy Geeks / Energy Policy, Solar / Renewables, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
