Advanced Energy Systems Coming to Bend

Apparently the solar systems installation industry of Central Oregon will get another competitor: Advanced Energy Systems.  The physical location is currently unknown but the Bend phone number is listed on the company’s website as 541-520-5590.

The above image is from an advertisement in the October 21, 2009 Cascade Business News and the following announcement was in the September Economic Development for Central Oregon Newsletter:

New Member: Advanced Energy Systems – Bronze
With a new office in Bend, AES Advanced Energy Systems has expanded from the west side of the Cascades. With 25 years of hands-on involvement in the renewable energy industry, Advanced Energy Systems is dedicated to providing the best experience possible for the business owner with the acquisition and operation of a renewable energy system. Advanced Energy Systems specializes in the design of commercial solar electric systems and commercial solar water heating systems.

Multiple Factors Drive the Price of PV Solar Down

More Sun for Less: Solar Panels Drop in Price
By Kate Galbraith – New York Times -August 26, 2009

When Greg Hare looked into putting solar panels on his ranch-style home in Magnolia, Tex., last year, he decided he could not afford it. “I had no idea solar was so expensive,” he recalled.

But the cost of solar panels has plunged lately, changing the economics for many homeowners. Mr. Hare ended up paying $77,000 for a large solar setup that he figures might have cost him $100,000 a year ago.

“I just thought, ‘Wow, this is an opportunity to do the most for the least,’ ” Mr. Hare said.

For solar shoppers these days, the price is right. Panel prices have fallen about 40 percent since the middle of last year, driven down partly by an increase in the supply of a crucial ingredient for panels, according to analysts at the investment bank Piper Jaffray.

The price drops — coupled with recently expanded federal incentives — could shrink the time it takes solar panels to pay for themselves to 16 years, from 22 years, in places with high electricity costs, according to Glenn Harris, chief executive of SunCentric, a solar consulting group. That calculation does not include state rebates, which can sometimes improve the economics considerably.

Swalley Irrigation District’s Ponderosa Hydro Plant Gets Stimulus Funds

Oregon canal piping projects win stimulus funds
From KTVZ.COM news sources – August 20, 2009

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced Thursday that the Bureau of Reclamation has identified two Challenge Grant projects in Central Oregon that will receive a $3.3 million share of $40 million coming to Oregon under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.  

Through the Challenge Grant Program’s Water Marketing and Efficiency Grants, Reclamation provides 50/50 cost share funding to states and irrigation and water districts for projects focused on water marketing, conservation and efficiency.  Projects are selected through a competitive process, based on their ability to meet the goal of improving sustainable water supplies in the western United States.  The projects include:

Main Canal Piping Project and Ponderosa Hydro plant, Swalley Irrigation District: $2,058,935 for this three stage/phase project that would complete piping of ¾ miles of canal, the design and construction of a 0.75 megawatt hydropower plant, and a solar telemetry project that would allow the District to use solar power for a system that monitors, measures and controls water.

Deschutes County Prefers Woody Biomass Over Solar

Solar may be mandated, but officials here push for biomass
By Nick Budnick  – The Bulletin - April 18, 2009

After a key legislative deadline passed on Friday, Deschutes County officials are resorting to some creative politicking in the Capitol to change a state solar power requirement.

In 2007, Gov. Ted Kulongoski signed into law a requirement backed by the solar energy industry that all new public building projects include 1.5 percent of their spending on solar power, such as rooftop panels.

In Deschutes County, however, officials say that money could be better spent on a different alternative energy source dubbed biomass, or as Phil Chang of the Central Oregon Intergovernmental Council puts it, a “community-scale thermal energy project.”

Harnessing the Heat: Active PV + Solar Thermal

PVT Solar, the company spotlighted in the article below is not the only company that combines photovoltaic technology and thermal energy to produce more energy than the PV alone.

SolarWall, an international company with headquarters in Toronto, Ontario, has developed a number of products based on its original air heating wall system including combining the thermal wall with photovoltaics to create their SolarDuct PV/T and SolarWall PV/T products.

The SolarWall PV thermal (PV/T) co-generation system was tested at the Canadian National Solar Test Facility.  The results showed that by adding a solar thermal component to a PV array to capture excess heat the total solar efficiency was boosted to over 50%, comparied with 10 to 15% efficiency that is typical of most stand-alone PV modules.

It’s clear, given the cost of PV panels, that every amount of available energy produced by the panels including thermal energy will need to be captured and put to use in order to provide economically saleable systems.

# # #

Waste Not, Want Not: A New Approach to Solar
By Matthew L. Wald – New York Times – September 29, 2008

One of the limitations of solar photovoltaic systems is that, at the current state of the technology, no more than a quarter of the energy from the sun is converted to electric current. Most of the rest of the energy is lost as waste heat.

But Vinod Khosla, the founder of Sun Microsystems and now a technology entrepreneur and alternative-energy venture capitalist, says he’s found a solution that doubles or even triples the energy yield — a gargantuan leap in a field where engineers exult over the most incremental gains.

Mr. Khosla is funding a company called PVT Solar, of Berkeley, Calif., where engineers two years ago began trying to harness that wasted heat. In a sense, it was already being collected, either in the solar modules themselves, or underneath. (Solar arrays are often installed at an angle, to face the sun, thus creating a wedge-shaped space below for heat to collect.)

Are Small Solar Firms at Risk?

Comments coming soon.

# # #

Amid Boom, Concerns at Small Solar Firms
Small-Scale Contractors Benefit From Interest in Solar Power
By Jan Ellen Spiegel- New York Times – September 24, 2008

Solar power is in the midst of a boom in the United States. High energy costs are one reason. But what may be more important are generous state and power company incentives and rebates, as well as tax credits that make solar systems affordable to many more people and businesses.

This surge has, in turn, created hundreds, if not thousands, of small businesses, mostly contractors and installers.

They are people like Glenn Barresi, an electrician in South Windsor, Conn., who got into the solar installation business in 2005, about a year after Connecticut instituted one of the most generous rebate programs in the country. His company, Solarbrite, has grown from two employees — Mr. Barresi and his father — to more than a half dozen. But, he said, if the rebates go away, “I’m out of business.”

While industry groups and experts are not predicting a bust, they are raising concerns that growth is about to be tempered. The solar power industry is experiencing growing pains over how power is financed and distributed. In the end, larger companies may gain the upper hand, and the incentives could decrease or even disappear.

“I think probably what we’re going to see is the gradual disappearance of the very small one-, two-, three-person company that does everything,” said Dave Ljungquist, associate director of project development at the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund.

Building Integrated Photovoltaics: Active + Passive Energy Synergy

There is no argument that conservation is the most effective way to reduce energy consumption.  But, just as we cannot drill our way out of the constant demand for oil, we cannot conserve or build our way out of the constant demand for the energy to heat and cool our homes and buildings.  By using green building techniques we can have a substantial effect on reducing energy consumption but it appears that no matter how much energy we conserve there will always be the demand for more and more energy.

By combining energy conservation, green building (and remodeling) techniques plus active and passive energy generation we can have the best of all worlds. 

One way to accomplish combining active and passive energy generation is to utilize Building Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV).  These are building materials that are capable of actively generating electical energy via built-in photovoltaics.  An example of a BIPV application are the skylights of the Boulder, Colorado REI store.

SolarWall, an international company with headquarters in Toronto, Ontario, has developed a number of products based on its original air heating wall system including combining the thermal wall with photovoltaics to create their SolarDuct PV/T and SolarWall PV/T products.

The SolarWall PV thermal (PV/T) co-generation system was tested at the Canadian National Solar Test Facility.  The results showed that by adding a solar thermal component to a PV array to capture excess heat the total solar efficiency was boosted to over 50%, comparied with 10 to 15% efficiency that is typical of most stand-alone PV modules.

Solar Panels Would Look Good on REI Bend

REI has been a leader in green building design for decades. Because lighting is by far the biggest use of electricity in a retail store – typically accounting for nearly 60 percent of the total electricity usage – REI has installed rooftop photovoltaic panels on eleven of its stores including three in Oregon (Tualatin, Clackamas and Hillsboro), seven in California and one in Texas.  And, when they redesigned the Boulder REI in 2007, they included a solar skylight system that provides two percent of the store’s electricity needs through building integrated photovoltaics (BIPV).

Boulder REI Building Integrated Photovoltaic

REI’s goal is to install solar panels on the roofs of more than 10 percent of their stores.  The three Oregon REI’s with solar panels are all located within in the Portland Metro Area.  Portland Metro receives substantially less solar irradiation than Central Oregon so it simply makes sense that the Bend REI should be high on the list for solar panels for REI to reach their 10 percent goal.

Bend’s Downtown Parking Garage Solar Project Now in Doubt

The following article effectively highlights the influence very large utility companies can have on renewable energy projects and the need for predictable financial incentives that are sufficiently large enough and have a life long enough to allow projects to be planned and completed. 

# # #

Bend’s Big Solar Project Delayed, in Doubt
The Bulletin – James Sinks – August 5, 2008

A high-profile – and high-elevation – green energy project in downtown Bend may still be in trouble, despite a recent ruling by the Oregon Public Utility Commission that seemed to give the green light to privately financed solar projects on public property.

A 200-kilowatt solar energy array is supposed to be installed atop the city’s new downtown parking structure, where photovoltaic cells would perch on steel trellises above the top deck of cars.

Yet, because of the delay caused by the PUC case – which was launched by utility giant PacifiCorp, the parent company of Pacific Power – it is doubtful now that the project can be completed by December 31. That’s when a federal tax credit available for operational solar power projects is due to shrink from 30 percent of the installation cost to 10 percent.

And without that higher federal tax credit, the project doesn’t pencil out financially, said Doug Parsons, the chief executive of Bend-based SunEnergy Power Corp., which would install and own the solar array and then sell the electricity generated.

If Eugene Can Do Solar, Why Not Bend?

There are dozens of medical offices, urban business parking lots, health care providers and gas stations in Bend that could easily erect solar carports at their businesses.  And Bend has – or claims to have – much more sunshine than Eugene yet the “wet side” Willamette Valley town has at least five solar carport projects to none in Bend. 

# # #

Eugene parking lots get solar-power caps
By Diane Dietz – The Register-Guard - May 1, 2008

The solar energy explosion under way on business rooftops in Eugene is spilling out onto parking lots as firms erect free-standing solar carports to shield their employees and customers and give their companies extra electrical power.

Driven by generous incentives and tax credits, five solar carport projects sprang up in Eugene during the past few years. A medical office, an urban business parking lot, a health care provider and a gas station all have erected solar carports at their businesses.

The carports consist of photovoltaic arrays on slanted, rectangular roofs set on standard steel pillars. From six to 10 cars park between painted lines under each cover.

In California, banks of these free-standing solar carports cover open-air parking lots. They save energy by keeping cars cool — they need less air conditioning at midday to be bearable — and they generate energy to feed to the grid, or for other nearby purposes.