thanks to students tim palmieri and megan varner for the inspiration for our premiere green screen. do you have a great story to tell about the environment or sustainable cities? share it and maybe you’ll launch our next green screen. and by the way, if you haven’t heard of storyfest, make sure you read about how to enter your piece in that, too.

how the times have changed.

today, the price of advanced photovoltaic technology has plummeted as the technology continues to advance.  this is coupled with significant tax credits at the local and federal level brought on by the stimulus bill of 2009.  the economics have become much better, but buying and installing solar power can still be hard for one person or household to manage.

enter: anya schoolman.

about 10 years ago schoolman’s son and his friend diego went to see an inconvenient truth. they came back on a mission. with the help of schoolman, the trio decided they wanted to go solar. they looked into it, did their research, and came out more confused. the family found it difficult to navigate the policies, forms and finding the proper vendors.  so they had the idea of starting a solar co-op in their neighborhood.  their friends and neighbors joined them in a bulk order, making it cheaper and easier for everyone to get access to the technology.

and dc solar united neighborhoods was born to help other neighborhoods around d.c make solar power affordable and accessible to everyone.

today, schoolman has taken the idea of uniting neighborhoods in pursuit of clean solar power national with the community power network, an organization that brings solar cooperatives around the country together to share in techniques and methods.  we had the opportunity to meet anya, see her solar array surrounded by all her neighbors’ panels, and learn about her work to make solar power accessible to everyone.  for schoolman, solar power is not the energy of the future; it’s the energy of the present.

would you consider putting solar on your house if you had your neighborhood behind you? would you organize your neighborhood to go green? tell us how and show off your home solar projects in our comments section.

gabe salkin and leor reef are seniors majoring in journalism at the george washington university.

as part of that effort, gadh’s team is using the ucla campus — in particular, boelter hall and the engineering iv and v buildings — as an experimental lab to observe how wireless sensing and control systems can help create the smart grid. they are retrofitting these structures with cutting-edge sensors and smart meters that can, for example, gauge and adjust the amount of power needed in a room at a particular time of day and control appliances, lights, and heating and air-conditioning systems depending on energy pricing or power availability on the grid.

learn more about professor gadh’s work in this video about the ucla smart grid energy research center.

our flagship effort is the pecan street demonstration, a smart grid research project in austin’s mueller community.

the initiative began in 2008 as a community collaboration to spark the nascent “smart grid” market in austin the way that the mcc and sematech consortia sparked the region’s semiconductor and information technology sectors a generation ago.

representatives of the founding members – the city of austin, austin energy, the university of texas, the austin technology incubator, the greater austin chamber of commerce and environmental defense fund – enlisted the participation of nearly a dozen private companies to explore the technical, economic and policy implications of an energy system that relies on better energy efficiency, locally generated renewable energy and a new economic model for electricity utilities.

i know that fiber optics transmit light but i wonder about heat as well. solar energy is at its most efficient when heat from sunlight is utilized directly instead of being converted into trickles of electrical juices. reflect sunlight to heat indoors at the shady back sides of houses that face to the north is one good example which i am using already. it can be aluminum foil or glassless mirrors made of special treated aluminum, like durabright patented by alcoa, and things like that.

i also wonder about whether fiber optics can carry vast amounts of sun heat captured in the deserts to the colder climates during winters? or can special reflectors be able to reflect infrared heat without the glare of the sunlight?? why are we so overfocused on photovoltaics and inverters alone? think reflection and concentration! not just passive photovoltaics and unnecessary inverters and batteries that cost too much for our tax credits that will go only to the wealthy…

their idea is to take non-essential electricity use off the grid to de-stress the system. and so they are building a network of large power users (businesses, schools, institutions, hospitals, governments, etc.), installing smart energy-management meters and monitors, and working with them to assess how much energy they can curtail on demand during those rare demand response events. in effect they are building virtual plants and in the process preventing blackouts and brownouts in regions all across the country. more info here: http://www.nicholas.duke.edu/main/dukenvironment/sp11/brewster

municipal property tax assessment financing
removing key barriers to residential solar
jd polk
february 2009

abstract: this paper outlines a new residential solar financing option, and provides a policy primer on how to replicate the model in cities and towns across america. the financing mechanism, known as the berkeley financing initiative for renewable and solar technology(first) model, allows property owners to roll the price of a residential solar installation into a 20-year increased property tax assessment. in this model a city or county authorizes municipal bonds to cover the capital costs of the renewable energy projects.

the first model represents a breakthrough in residential solar deployment by removing a key barrier to solar adoption: high upfront capital costs. this voluntary, opt-in property tax assessment model has the potential to dramatically increase the penetration of residential solar systems, helping municipalities achieve renewable energy generation and climate change goals. in this paper the benefits and challenges of the model, both to property owners and to municipalities, are explained. the paper concludes with a policy discussion of the steps needed to implement this financing tool in other jurisdictions.

introduction
innovations in the financing of solar systems are as important to market adoption of solar
installations as innovations in solar technology. in this paper we explore a new financing
method currently being deployed in berkeley, california that will allow consumers to purchase solar for their homes and businesses with very little, if any, up-front capital cost. the financing initiative for renewable and solar technology (first) model has the potential to spur widespread adoption of small-scale solar systems (as well as energy efficiency retrofits) in u.s. homes and small businesses. the purpose of this paper is to describe this new finance tool, noting its benefits and potential pitfalls, and to provide policy makers with a primer for implementing this option in additional communities across america.

the berkeley first model
in 2007, residential solar energy systems in berkeley, california were selling for roughly
$12,000 – $40,000 for a 2 -5kw system, and throughout the city approximately 400 solar
photovoltaic (pv) systems, averaging 2.6 kw, had been installed on homes. adoption of solar was progressing, but not at a pace fast enough to help berkeley meet its voter-adopted climate change goal. city officials, led by cisco devries, the then-chief of staff to mayor tom bates, decided that the local government should intervene to speed up the shift to renewable sources of energy. what emerged was the berkeley first program.

“we needed to find a way to help people finance solar and energy efficiency programs in a way that eliminated the high upfront cost,” said devries. 2 the first program is a property-tax assessment program that allows property owners – both residential and commercial- to pay for the installation of solar systems (electric or thermal) and energy efficiency improvements to their buildings through their property tax bills, spanning a twenty-year duration. under the program, individuals wishing to install solar will still contract directly with qualified private solar installers. rather than paying the up-front cost of the solar system, the customer will instead opt-in to the city’s first financing program and pay a bi-annual assessment bundled into their local property taxes that covers the project’s costs, including fixed interest rates and administrative fees. berkeley’s analysis shows that for many residents, the yearly assessment will be less or equal to the electricity savings throughout the year.

the city of berkeley will be able to provide the upfront funds for the solar and energy efficiency projects by issuing taxable municipal bonds, which will be reimbursed as participating property owners, pay their tax bills for the subsequent 20 years. the basic principal of the program is that solar should be financed like most capital-intensive purchases these days – a new car, a major
home repair – through long-term payment plans that alleviate much, if not all, of the up-front capital expense.

for example, my daughter who lives in fairbanks, alaska is age 31 and owns a modest home. there is a window covering which would greatly improve her home’s ability to retain heat at night during periods of deep cold. her house would leak less heat and use less fuel if she had these window coverings, which are a honeycomb blind which rides in a track. the product was accepted as valid for the 2009-2010 rebate. for less than $1000, she could begin the savings. for $2000 she could probably put these on all her windows and they would be more efficient from the moment of installation forward. if there were an incentive, i would be more likely to help her improve her home’s energy usage by cutting loose $2000 from my savings for the product, which would go into circulation, give some work to someone, and make her home better. it’s a win-win. money that is now passively resting could go back to work and we would begin addressing the energy losses from buildings which sorely need energy efficiency.

call it the parent and neighbor energy conservation tax credit!

church congregations could pool potential donors to create greater combined funds to make some serious changes to needy buildings, something like “habitat for humanity” does for new buildings.

if the donors could make a check-off on their tax forms, pools of money could be created for improving homes of perfect strangers. deserving applicants could be matched up with their money.

yes, the program would need quality control. but think of all the improvements that were implemented with the 2009-2010 rebate program, improvements which will help the environment, the u.s, and the climate going forward. this program would continue to promote energy savings, move the improvements to homes which sorely need them, and continue to stimulate the businesses related to construction and home improvement.

why can’t i be able to buy my own windmill? why can’t i afford solar panels (even with the tax break)? why can’t i heat water, and charge my electric car with solar power? i don’t need exxon or archer daniels or solar energy, inc. to put solar panels on my roof, i can call a local company, install all of this 50+ year-old technology, and begin saving energy in a week. my tax subsidy has to assure a return of capital within 5 years. that would still cost less the current subsidies to the industrial complex.

and oh, by the way, since most of this work has to be done on site, it will have to employ us labor. these jobs cannot be shipped overseas they way big corporations now do it.

remodels like what we are doing now will pay it self back in 4 yrs, earth berm has a long history of thousands of yrs. and is used in the north cold areas and the hot desert areas too. most of the planet has used it in the past and its not the type of construction that takes long or trained employees to build. earth berming does not have to look like the old idea of bermed houses. they can look like regular walls or southwest style, or red brick or the same as what we think stick housing is now! businesses can do it too as long as they have the space to. also if we just make the building codes so that they use steel studs in walls inside and outside this will slow the demand for lumber and save trees. we do not need cap and trade to get the same results if there is no demand for lumber they will cut loging lumber its about money here. if we can get other nations to do this too it will save our forrest. if we set the meat import amounts to the levels of today there is not as much reason to slash and burn forrest.

it makes far more sense to reduce demade for the use of the forrest than to tax and police them and destroy local tribes and ways of life to bring in roads and development for policeing them. this bull about hi teck is just marketing. why would one want to buy a solar system when the pay back now is 7 yrs to 9 yrs when earth berming is 4 yrs tops. if you already have an earth berm house and want solar that would make more sense to split the investment pay back time between the two for a better return on the investment.

as far as tax credits they are after the fact you have to spend it first to get it back if you have the taxable income. why not just exempt sales tax on earth berm remodel project materials. with just showing your building permit. that is front loading the project not back loading it. if we think out of the box this can go much further here. i am not that much into internet things. but i do have a lot of other ideas that would help us out. e mail me if you want and i will let you know how my project is going and if you are in northern az. you can visit and i will show you our alpaca ranch and earth berm project too. ron nyberg