MakeHeat

“ Central Waters Brewing is the first brewery in the state to use solar energy. Company President Paul Graham says they rebooted the facility with solar thermal panels a year and a half ago at a $105,000 price tag. With grants and tax incentives, he says they paid about 45 percent of that, out of pocket.

Graham figures the system will be paid off in six years. Depending on cost fluctuations of natural gas, he estimates $1.6 million in savings during the life of the system.

The Amherst brewer says there is intrinsic value as well, “We’re very green minded people. We’ve done this essentially because we feel it’s right.”

The solar power provides heat for the building, water used in plant operations, and brewing which is a high energy process. …’

Listen to the story here: Harnessing the power of the sun…for beer.

While not heat related, this is a prime example of cutting down your energy bill one room at a time, and doing it without taking out a loan.

My Solar Power Set Up – Part 1 BASIC SYSTEM – DIY Cheap, Free Power.

-Ed. note:  What I believe would make a big difference would be a DIY system that you could plug into the grid. While a small system like this would not “spin your meter backward”, it would give you the best of both worlds: an inexpensive DIY system that would at least slow down your electric bill, and the convenience of not having to rewire your whole house.  Current regulations mandate that you have an electrician vet out your system, which means there’s a lot more research, phone calls to local authorities, etc. before you can just do a plug and play system.

“Research conducted by scientists at the University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) has enabled a new solar heating system to be developed using nanotechnology which heats water to five times the temperature of a conventional system. Reportedly, the project has emerged from one of the enterprises of the URFJ’s business incubator. …”

Read more at: Renewable Energy Magazine

“… The vacuum between the tubes prevents heat loss during cold weather. Other solar heaters need antifreeze to keep working in winter. The Solar Quest system of tubes keeps working even at temperatures of minus 40 degrees F without any chemicals added to the purer water.

Another advantage of the new system is it integrates the function of hot water storage and solar energy collection into one unit. Evacuated tube collectors produce hotter water. The heated water keeps circulating through the tubes by a passive convection current. This eliminates the need and cost for a pump to circulate water between a storage tank and a heat collector. The storage tank is stainless steel with a polyurethane coating to insulate it from the outside weather. …”

World solar power: Turkish technology reaches Stroudsburg |PoconoRecord.com.

From April – worth checking to see if you can still get rebates:

http://planetgreen.discovery.com/home-garden/cash-caulkers-rebate-money.html

A new company called Clarian has announced that it will have a plug ‘n’ play home solar kit ready by next spring. The “Sunfish” is essentially a sun visor that you can hang over a sunny, south-facing window.

The device uses the company’s 250 W micro-inverter to feed energy directly into your home through any standard outlet. You plug it into the wall, and in another convenient location you plug in a circuit monitor that uses software to sync the inverter to the monitor, reducing the amount of electricity you pull from the grid.

Forbes.com

Also, from grinzo.com:
“…Oh yeah — cost per unit of energy produced. A quick look at the Clarian web site finds this page with some specs on the panels involved. Said page says:

There will be two sizes of module, 200W and 1,000W.
Expected prices are $799 for the 200W unit…
“… The 200W unit produces 30kWh of energy per month, while the larger model is good for 150kWh/month.
The units will have a “payback in 3-4 years or less”. …”

Just found some sealed batteries at a discount for the DIY’ers at the AltE store:
They’re “open box”, which means that they can’t sell them as new, but they still carry the full warranty, and they’ve discounted the price.  Go to the AltE store and search for agm battery “open box” – include the quotes.

“… The SolarEdge distributed power harvesting PV system includes PowerBoxes which are power optimizers that are integrated into each and every solar module, and enable performance of each module at its own optimum at all times. PowerBoxes perform constant tracking of their respective module’s Maximum Power Point (MPP), so no module is dependent upon performance of neighboring modules. Unlike PV systems with a centralized inverter, in a SolarEdge system modules with low performance do not drag down the performance of other modules in the same string, and in fact have no effect on the performance of other modules. In addition, PowerBoxes maintain fixed string voltage, so that the inverter’s input voltage is always constant and equals the optimum inversion voltage. For this reason, the system can have strings that differ in length and other properties. …”

via http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/blog/post/2010/08/solaredge-makes-impossible-installations-possible?cmpid=rss

A great discussion and intriguing answers at green building advisor’s forum.  Beats the daylights out of watching Sensationalized Hypocritical Information TV “News”…

Long term thermal storage has never yet panned out in practice.

You want to save all that extra solar energy from the summer and use it in the winter? Get a PV system and put it on the grid. Then pull it off the grid. The grid stores it for you, not in Btus or even kwhs, but in Dollars. Problem solved.

ANSWERED BY KEVIN DICKSON – Jul 12 10

6.

Kevin,

You’re exactly right. Although solar thermal systems collect more BTUs per dollar invested than PV systems, they yield less useful energy on a year-round basis — much less in winter, when thermal heat is needed.

The simple fact of the matter is that solar thermal systems collect too much heat during the summer, when no one wants it — and that solar thermal heat is almost impossible to store.

Grid-connected PV systems, on the other hand, give homeowners credit for 100% of the energy produced — so they come out ahead.

ANSWERED BY MARTIN HOLLADAY, GBA ADVISOR – Jul 12 10

via Solar heat storage in sand bed under house slab? | GreenBuildingAdvisor.com.

Used more for new construction, Building Integrated PhotoVolaics (BIPV) is slowly gaining ground.  Rather than poking a panel on a pole and sticking it in the dirt where there’s no shade, or racks of panels on the roof, BIPV integrates solar electric, energy efficient design and archetecture:

“…Whenever you approach an industry from a different perspective, that’s when you produce very interesting products, said JD Albert of SRS Energy.  SRS produces curved roofing tiles made of PV that are designed to fit into the mission-style architecture of the southwestern region of the U.S.  Curved red clay roof tiles there are modeled after the Mediterranean roof styles found in Spain and elsewhere. …”

BIPV Market Gaining Traction | Renewable Energy World.