The Commonwealth Solar Stimulus and Commonwealth Solar Rebate Programs will be available today at 2:00 PM EST on Wednesday, January 27, 2010.
The Commonwealth Solar Program provides rebates through a non-competitive application process for the installation of photovoltaic (PV) projects. The Commonwealth Solar II Rebate Program provides rebates for commercial systems up to 5 kilowatts (kW) and all residential systems (regardless of size). The Commonwealth Solar Stimulus Rebate Program provides rebates for commercial PV systems sized greater than 5 kW up to 200 kW.
The Commonwealth Solar program issued awards for the installation of 23.5 megawatts (MW) of solar power over the last two years, but recently ran short of funding. The new rebate programs for homeowners, business, and communities throughout the Commonwealth will help the commonwealth reach Governor Deval Patrick’s goal of installing 250 MW of solar energy by 2017. Commonwealth solar also provides webinars and information on helpful resources, plus view the map of installations of solar photovoltaic projects across the state.
One of the first home improvements Rachel and I made when we purchased our condo here in Cambridge this spring was a solar hot water installation on our rooftop.
The system we had put in uses vacuum tubes, a newer, more efficient type of solar collector than the black box flat panels of old. As a writer covering energy and the environment in Cambridge and China, I’d spent the past three years tracing this new and exotic technology back to the factories and cities in China where they are surprisingly commonplace.
I first read about the tubes three years ago in a story in the Boston Globe. A family in Newbury, MA was using a massive installation to provide hot water and heat for their giant barn of a house. A photo that went with the story showed their installation covered in frost on a cold winter day. Somehow, despite the cold, the tubes were still kicking out 120 to 160 degree water. The secret behind vacuum tubes that allows them to work just as well in winter as summer is, just as their name suggests, a vacuum space. The diagram at the right shows how the tubes work. Sunlight passes through a clear outer glass tube and travels through an evacuated space or vacuum where all of the air has been sucked out. The sunlight passes through this vacuum and then hits an inner black pipe that absorbs the sun’s rays converting the sunlight to heat. What’s key about all of this is that whereas light rays can pass through a vacuum space, heat can not. All of the heat is therefore trapped inside by this highly efficient, transparent insulator.
After I read the story in the Globe I found out that there are thousands of factories kicking out these tubes in China and roughly 1 in 10 Chinese people use them for their hot water.
Six months after first hearing of the tubes, I toured the R&D center of one of these factories in Beijing for a story I wrote for New Scientist.
The story also led me to Rizhao, a city on the coast between Beijing and Shanghai where 99 percent of residents get their hot water from the sun. Here is a video I made from a rooftop of the city while talking with Rizhao’s mayor, Li Zhaoqian.
By the time we had a chance to buy a place of our own I was totally sold on the technology and couldn’t wait to put the tubes in on our own place. Evacuated tubes are still hard to come by in the US, however, and most of the installers I spoke with insisted they were no better than the flat panel solar collectors that had been around since the 70s. The estimates I got for flat panel installations, however, were twice the size of what I figured I could get by with using vacuum tubes. Then I found Bruce, a contractor with New England Solar Hot Water, who, like his company’s name suggests, only does solar hot water installations. Bruce and his crew had been doing vacuum tube installs for years and were stoked to hear I’d actually toured some of the factories where they get their parts.
In mid June they installed the collectors shown on the right that heat all of our domestic hot water; the water we use for showers, laundry, and in our sinks. The system is backed up by natural gas but on a sunny day like today, its unlikely we’ll need it. At 9am, with an outside temp of 43 F, our tubes are already a toasty 95 F and climbing.
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.
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.
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.
It’s Earth Day, 2009. What have you done this year to lessen your carbon footprint, save energy, and shop responsibly? I remain imperfect although I claim to be “green.” I educate myself, take public transit to work, turn off lights, shop with reusable bags and keep the heat off as much as possible. Still, is this enough? I’ve decided it’s important to not get overwhelmed and instead do what you can using the “every vote counts” motto.
For example, a simple way to support renewable energy is a mere few clicks away. Just recently I learned Boston-area residents have the option to support clean wind power under NSTAR Green. This program makes it easy for consumers to support wind energy by demanding their electricity be provided by wind, not coal. You have the option of choosing between 50% and 100% wind power. And no, it’s not that expensive. So, on this Earth Day, do your part by checking out NSTAR Green and switching from coal-generated electricity to wind.
From Canada comes the rather amazing story of Cansolair, a company that reuses soda cans to make solar panels. Once installed, this soda/solar unit can provide up to 30% of the heating for your house. All this in the cloudy, foggy Labrador region. All without adding another CO2 particle to the environment. Maybe Coke knew it was onto something when they introduced this new flavor last year.
This car will be competing in October in the World Solar Challenge race across Australia. About a dozen team members are expected to go to Australia for the race, although only four will drive the solar car in the competition. By the way, the car’s name is Eleanor and when the sun shines, it will do 55 mph all day long.
That’s the upside of the NYT story Dark Days for Green Energy, which details slowdowns and layoffs in the alternative energy world brought on by a combination of the credit crisis and the continued price moderation of fossil fuels. We’re trying hard to see the positive side of things here at Warm Home Cool Planet.
The price of solar panels has fallen by 25 percent in six months, according to Rhone Resch, president of the Solar Energy Industries Association, who said he expected a further drop of 10 percent by midsummer. For homeowners, however, the savings will not be as substantial, partly because panels account for only about 60 percent of total installation costs.
So while congress debates how much of the stimulus package will be spent on tax cuts, and how much will be spent on, well, actual infrastructure spending that stimulates the economy, maybe more of us can take matters into our own hands and start buying up those solar panels.
Of course, just when we thought that the glass was at least half full we read this:
In Massachusetts, for example, the Commonwealth Solar program cut its rebate by $1 per watt on Jan. 1, reducing the overall discount by $3,000 for a 3 kilowatt solar panel system…
So make your calculations carefully, and make sure you get the latest information on the bewildering array of deductions, exemptions, incentives and rebates which make Massachusetts one of the most solar progressive states in the country. This list of goodies is dated 2009, which is nice.
So you’re caught up in the moment, dreaming about solar panels, a wind turbine on your roof, selling energy back to the power company rather than paying a monthly utility bill. But if we are, as President Obama suggested, to put aside childish things and enter a new era of responsibility, we must do first things first.
That means having taking a whole house approach to our energy conservation efforts. it doesn’t make sense to spend tens of thousands of dollars generating electricity you’re throwing away through inefficiency. In the end, it doesn’t matter if you generate energy or simply consume it, what really matters is your net energy footprint.
People sometimes fixate on a single facet of a problem with the best intentions. Dieters pack on the pounds while virtuously wolfing down bags of fat-free cookies. How many times have you heard someone order the super-size double whopper value meal with a diet soda, and thought that soda isn’t really the problem?
The Commonwealth Solar Stimulus and Commonwealth Solar Rebate Programs will be available today at 2:00 PM EST on Wednesday, January 27, 2010.
It’s Earth Day, 2009. What have you done this year to lessen your carbon footprint, save energy, and shop responsibly? I remain imperfect although I claim to be “green.” I educate myself, take public transit to work, turn off lights, shop with reusable bags and keep the heat off as much as possible. Still, is this enough? I’ve decided it’s important to not get overwhelmed and instead do what you can using the “every vote counts” motto.
