This month’s The Radish Magazine has a short article about a Macomb couple who have installed 24 solar panels (sounds like about a 5 kW system) on their roof. They are the first McDonough Power Company customers with a backwards running meter. Check out the article.
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Illinois’ Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity announced recently that the funds budgeted for their Solar and Wind Energy Rebate Program have been fully allocated so no more projects are being funded for fiscal year 2010. The announcement reads: “Due to the overwhelming response to the solar and wind energy rebate program, no more funding remains for this fiscal year. DCEO is no longer accepting applications for the solar and wind rebate program for Fiscal Year 2010. Please check this website in July, 2010 for information about the program for Fiscal Year 2011.” I emailed the guy in charge of the solar part of the program to inquire about whether or not projects completed between now and July would be elligible for the rebate in FY 2011. He replied that projects completed between now and when the program is refunded would be elligible so there is no need to wait to put in a solar or wind installation. I found a Youtube video showing the use of a gin pole in putting up a 120 ft tower and Bergey Excel turbine. Check it out. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAJ6OINEhME Also they have a picture gallery of the installation with a lot more detail on how they did it: The Quad Cities Home Builders’ Association will be holding a green home show on Febrauary 21st from 1-4 PM. Admission is free. For more information see the QCHBA web site. For most of my system designs I am going to Enphase inverters. These are small inverters that afix to the back of each panel so that each panel generates their own AC. I like the flexibility that this technology affords, and for small and medium sized systems they can be less costly solution. Renewable Energy World has a good article about the benefits of this technology. One of the biggest problems with wind and solar is the intermittent nature of the production. There are days when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine. If wind and solar are ever going to be used for more than a fraction of the US’s energy needs, storage technologies must be developed that will allow us to store excess production for use later. One storage technology that shows promise and that is actually in production is the zinc bromide “battery.” This technology has been around for decades, having been developed by Exxon back in the 70’s. And it is relatively inexpensive compared to other storage technologies. There are currently three companies marketing zinc-bromide storage products so you could buy one today if you had the cash. There is a good article about zinc-bromide storage on the Green energy News blog. Illinois is in the process of starting their rebate program for energy efficienct appliances, heating and cooling, and water heaters. The program for central air conditioners, furnaces, heat pumps, boilers, and water heaters began on January 31st. The program for clothes washers, dish washers, room air conditioners, freezers and refrigerators runs for just ten days starting on April 16th. During that time customers will receive an instant rebate of 15% of the purchase price on qualifying appliances. You can find the fact sheet for this program here. So if you are an Illinois resident and are interested in upgrading your appliances to more energy efficient models, this would be a great time to make the move. For those on the other side of the river, the Iowa program is set to start in March. Information is available on the Iowa Office of Energy Independance web site. Typically wind turbines adjust the blade pitch to compensate for changes in wind speed. That works well where the wind speed changes gradually but in gusty winds, especially high gusts, the turbines cannot adjust quickly enough to compensate. Using lidar (light detection and ranging) technology, Dutch researchers have developed a way for turbines to look at approaching winds and adjust for changes before they actually happen. This decreases the chance of damage and increases turbine output by as much as 5%. Five percent may not sound like much but on a 4 mW turbine it can be worth as much as $38,000 a year in additional output. The Economist has the full article about this technology. I have seen this story in several places. Wayne State University installed a relatively new VAWT (Verticle Axis Wind Turbine) last April, hoping to power their engineering computer lab with it. Almost a year later the turbine is gone, the victim of poor performance and design problems. Wayne State’s on-line newspaper has this story about it. Responding to a critical comment about the turbine, Dwight Siman, a member of VBINE’s board of directors replied: “I am on the board of directors for this company and can tell you we have been working hard over the past 1/1/2 years to develope a suitable blade to power our VAWT. The Turbine is capable of putting out over 10 KW on the bench and we want to capture at least 5kw out of the wind . I am please to advise you that we are satisfied with our lates blade design ands are now in the manufacturing stage. units will be available as early as Jan 11 2010. be carfull of claims of roof mounted units we have found that we need to get our units up around 50 + feet to be effective as the wind gets more consitant the higher you go. We do have a roof mount available for our unit but for comercial applications on a building that is already over 50 ‘ in height.” So since the new units with redesigned blades are just now coming out, if Mr. Siman’s estimates are correct, apparently part of the problem with the Wayne State unit would be poor blade design? I suppose that this comes under the heading of Caveat Emptor. I have mentioned this before but it bears repeating. There are legions of new and innovative wind turbine designs coming out right now, especially in the VAWT field. A few of those designs might actually produce a modicum of useable power. But unless you have a pot of money to gamble with along with a high risk tolerance, you would do much better to stick with proven designs that have a long track record of performance. This is cool, so to speak. A wind farm consisting of three turbines has been installed in Antarctica. To date all of the electricity used by the various bases there has been generated by diesel generators. Even though the output of these towers only constitues 11% of New Zealand’s Scott Base and the American McMurdo Station, that still adds up to 122,000 gallons of diesel fuel saved per year. Not bad. And I suppose they have fewer problems with NIMBYs.
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Copyright © 2010 Kyle Harris - All Rights Reserved |
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