Sustainable Insights          

solar water heating | Shifting Solutions.

August 6, 2006I attached a HOBO data logger to the system so I could monitor the performance of the system. I made up my own sensor probes to monitor the temperature coming into the Wand and out, the temperature at the top of the tank, and the PV voltage (to track the solar exposure). The HOBOware software allows me to produce a very clear graph of my first full day. The outdoor temperatures peaked in the mid ’70’s and there were no clouds. We used hot water in a normal way, and the graph clearly shows a significant solar contribution (green line). I will add more graphs as I tweak the system.

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Excerpt from the Society of American Foresters

By Michael Taylor, Wyerhaeuser Company, Diane L. Haase, Department of Forest Engineering, Resources & Management, and Robin L. Rose, Department of Forest Engineering, Resources & Management

Reforestation on harsh, high-elevation sites near the crest of the Cascade Mountains can be challenging because of persistent snowpack and extreme climatic variation. To help find a solution to meet this challenge, the use of tree shelters was investigated with two species, Douglas-fir and western larch on two Yakama nation sites across three fall planting dates.

High-elevation sites in the eastern Cascades of Washington have a short period of favorable spring planting conditions followed by a short growing season. In addition, rapid changes in soil moisture, temperature, relative humidity, and solar radiation make plantation establishment on these sites more challenging than on lower-elevation sites Most soil moisture on these sites result from snowmelt with very little additional precipitation from spring through fall. The snowpack insulates the ground and young seedlings from constantly changing and potentially deadly temperatures and winds during the winter months; but once the snowpack melts, the seedling environment changes rapidly from wet and cold to hot and dry.

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New Podcast -Listen as Matt Malinosky of Questions and Solutions Engineering explains how HOBO data loggers can be used for building commissioning.

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BY JENNIFER AMATO

NORTH BRUNSWICK — Students at John Adams Elementary School were “energized” last week even though they had to stay after school.

Members of the fourth-grade gifted and talented program listened to a presentation Jan. 6 by Ray Kuehner, an energy specialist for the North Brunswick school district.

Within the district, Kuehner said heating, cooling, electric and gas costs total about $3 million a year.

“It’s a lot of money. A lot of money,” he said.

However, he said the district is taking measures to save energy and money. By doing “simple things,” he said, about $500,000 has already been saved.

“We are able to put it back into our education budget to buy books and other things you guys need to learn,” he said.

One important change within the district has been shutting off lights when a room is empty. Another is opening shades to let in light and warmth when the weather is cold, and shutting them to block out the cold or extreme summer heat.

In addition, the lights have been disconnected on the 20 vending machines at Linwood Middle School and North Brunswick Township High School, saving about $100 per machine per year, or about $2,000 total.

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Energy Empowers | Idaho schools saving energy, educating students.

When Idaho officials decided to spend Recovery Act money to make their school buildings more energy efficient, it set off a chain reaction. Now, the project is creating more comfortable and safe learning environments for its students and providing them with examples of how to save energy. At the same time, it’s saving taxpayers some dough.

The Idaho K-12 School Efficiency Project increases energy efficiency while saving precious education dollars, says schools superintendant Tom Luna. “It also provides a great opportunity for schools to incorporate lessons about energy education in the classroom,” he says.

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Recently, my company sold 37 sets of H21 environmental temperature and humidity monitoring system along the railway line in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau fuelwood, delhi, Shule completed the installation of the deployment, the system for monitoring the status of wood to the stability of the railway embankment monitoring and two other land permafrost studies provide scientific data to support a favorable, in order to reflect the study of global warming, permafrost has played a good supporting role.

Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is a high-latitude permafrost is very sensitive to the temperature and humidity of the soil medium, rich in underground ice. Therefore, the permafrost has a rheology, far below its long-term strength characteristics of the instantaneous intensity. Precisely because of these characteristics, construction engineering structures in permafrost areas is facing two dangers: frost heave and thawing. Therefore, frozen soil areas of soil and environmental monitoring is necessary. And permafrost is sensitive to climate change factor, permafrost monitoring of global climate change research is a very important significance.

New Podcast – Listen as Larry Lesser of Rana Creek Living Architecture explain how HOBO data loggers are being used to monitor different types of green roof designs at the Miami Museum of Science. The data will provide valuable information about which design would work best in South Florida’s subtropical climate.

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Click here to listen as Ryan Blair and Ken Rackowsky of Bluestone Energy explain how they used HOBO data loggers as part of a comprehensive energy efficiency strategy at the EF Education Center in Cambridge, MA and helped the company qualify for substantial utility rebates.
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By Elisa Wood

Some green energy sources seem to have charisma; others struggle for public attention with little success.

Solar energy is an “it” technology, as evidenced once again by the tremendous participation in the annual Solar Power International conference in Anaheim, California this week (Oct. 27-29). Twice as many companies (945) are displaying their wares in the Expo Hall this year, despite the still lagging economy. And overall attendance is expected to break last year’s record, itself a record breaker.

Even on Main Street, ask pretty much anyone and they know solar, probably like it, and see it as an economy builder.

Ask the same people about geothermal heat pumps and there is a good chance they won’t know what you’re talking about. Or they may give an answer that confuses the appliances with geothermal geyser power plants. For whatever reason, the concept of extracting heat from the ground has yet to capture the public or political imagination as much as extracting it from the sun.

Yet, geothermal heat pumps could have a significant impact on our energy supply. They can be installed pretty much anywhere there is a building. And if we used them to maximum potential in the United States, we could avoid building 91-105 gigawatts of generation, nearly half of the new power we will need in 2030, according to the US Department of Energy.

Homeowners who consider then discard the idea often cite the high upfront installation costs. Yet the same argument could easily be made about solar photovoltaic panels. So why is geothermal an also ran technology?

One problem, according to the DOE, is that the heat pump industry needs to collect and disseminate more solid data on heat pumps. Work underway by the Chewonki Foundation, an educational institute in Maine, moves in this direction. With a grant from the Maine Public Utilities Commission, Chewonki is monitoring and measuring the performance of a newly installed heat pump system at its 11,000 square-foot meeting hall. The state is looking for an alternative to heating buildings with oil, a relatively common fuel in Maine. Geothermal heat pumps may prove to be that alternative. http://www.onsetcomp.com/resources/white_papers

This is not to imply that the geothermal heat pump industry is not growing. To the contrary, US shipments of geothermal heat pumps grew 40 percent last year, according to a report released this month by the Energy Information Administration. http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/solar.renewables/page/ghpsurvey/geothermalrpt.pdf. The industry is very much a domestic jobs builder. Most of the systems shipped in the US last year where manufactured here — 416,019 tons – with the remaining 86 tons from China. Sixteen percent of US product was exported.

Still, the geothermal heat pump industry is a small one, representing $319 million last year. Compare this to a domestic solar PV cell and module market of $1.72 billion in 2007 (2008 figures are not yet available from EIA).

Of course, it was just a few years ago that solar conferences were drawing hundreds, not tens of thousands of people, as Solar Power International does now. So who knows? Perhaps it’s not far-fetched to imagine the term” geothermal” rolling off the tongue of the average consumer, as easily as “solar” does today.

Visit Elisa Wood at http://www.realenergywriters.com/ and pick up her free Energy Efficiency Markets podcast and newsletter

When Governor Schwarzenegger signed the landmark Solar Water Heating and Efficiency Act of 2007, he launched the largest solar water heating program in our nation’s history. The new legislation calls for a 10-year program aimed at installing approximately 200,000 solar water heaters in homes and businesses throughout California. By creating this program, lawmakers hope to see a reduction of harmful emissions, increased energy efficiency and lower utility bills.

A recent study shows that families below the poverty line spend 19% of their income on utility bills. To alleviate this burden and ensure that energy conservation is widely accessible to California residents, the California Department of Community Services and Development and the Southern California Forum for Energy Efficiency, Environmental, and Human Services Providers (SCF) initiated a renewable energy pilot program. As part of the program, solar hot water heating systems have been installed in four of the 22 low-income, single family homes across the state.

Funded by the State Petroleum Violation Escrow Account (PVEA), this program, in particular, will monitor each of the study homes’ energy and gas consumption to determine the efficiency of the solar hot water heating systems.

Arleen Novotney, Executive Director of SCF, is leading the project.

“Our goal is to provide low-income homeowners with access to renewable energy solutions designed to decrease energy consumption and reduce energy bills,” explains Novotney. “For this program, we installed solar hot water systems in various climate zones across the state and will monitor the efficiency of the solar hot water heating systems.”

To monitor systems performance, Novotney chose web-based HOBO® U30 Remote Monitoring Systems manufactured by Massachusetts-based Onset Computer Corporation. The monitoring system consists of a GSM cellular-based data logging unit and sensors that monitor gas usage, cold and hot water supply temperature, solar collector water temperature, and hot water flow.

The HOBO U30 collects data at one minute intervals, 24/7 and the information is accessible via the web.

Novotney and her team can access the data from Onset’s HOBOlink™ website. “With HOBOlink, we can view the data anytime, anywhere we have access to the Internet.” says Novotney. “The ability to view data remotely allows us to see how the hot water heating units are performing without having to go back into the field to manually collect the data.”

According to Novotney, many factors are being considered for this study. The evaluation of these systems will include a snapshot of the costs associated with the homeowners’ gas and electrical usage, as well as the energy costs following the installations. The energy savings will be reflected by the climate zone, the household size, and fuel type.

“Since no one in our state has ever monitored the natural gas usage associated with a solar water heating unit, we wanted to track the consumption of gas when the solar power was on versus when the solar power was turned off,” explains Novotney.

So far, the collected data indicates that the solar hot water heating systems are helping. During daylight hours the system turns off and only turns back on at night. “This is the kind of data we needed to see,” explains Novotney. “We wanted to determine whether or not the systems were performing the way we hoped they would. The data showed us that during the day there is no need for the system’s gas or the electric power to turn on, and this will ultimately save homeowners money.”

According to Novotney, the HOBO U30 systems will continue monitoring the current test homes until October and then she and her team plan to change the location of the loggers to include additional test homes.

“We plan on using the HOBO U30 systems on each of the 22-test homes for the pilot study”, concludes Novotney. “We hope to have comparison data on all of the solar hot water hearing systems by next year.”