Electron Solar Energy Blog

Indian Mountain School Wind Test Site One

Ken — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 14:46:00 GMT

We set up the anemometer far off from the road behind the playing fields of Osgood House. Between all of our collective experiences (Mark, Mike, Levi and myself) and our years at IMS we all agree that there’s good wind potential there. The fields are obviously wide open with good distance from any trees, the perch is right where the fields begin to slope down into the valley before coming back up onto the mountain. It seems like pretty much a perfect spot – this is also a great place for the turbine because the school has no plans and the area is not an ideal place for building – as the school expands over the coming decades this is not going to be their first choice of where to build. It’s out of the way, not where students typically walk or play… even with a 80 or 100 foot turbine the odds are basically zero that anyone is ever going to see it from the road, so all in all… let’s see what happens.

The plan is to take reading through the holidays and then do our first data check in mid-January when the students are all back and we can show them how to analyze the data, what it all means. What they can expect, etc… and of course see what the economics might be.

So, stay tuned for mid-Jan and I’ll post the results as I get them.

Wind Test At Indian Mountain School

Ken — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 18:47:00 GMT

I went to The Indian Mountain School from 7^th through 9^th grade, while it may seem early for some to be away from home, I thoroughly enjoyed boarding school and had a great time there. Over the years when I’ve come back to Lakeville, having a house down the street from the school, I’ve gone hiking on the mountain and wandering around in the woods, same as I did when I was younger. It’s been a pleasure to see the school grow and prosper over time. So, needless to say I contacted Mark Devey, the Headmaster and Mike Brown Head of the Science Department to see if they had a renewable energy plan for the school and suggested it would be interesting to do a wind and solar study on campus to see what the prospects were. Both were excited for the idea, put me in touch with Levi who’s in charge of their “green” program and earlier this morning – after we had just had almost 9 inches of snow earlier in the week we tramped out into the back fields at the school and set up one of our anemometers and we’ll see what we get. Here are a couple of the photos from the set up, tomorrow I’ll post a little bit more about the positioning on campus and why we chose the location.

Mike, Levi and I setting up the anemometer in the back of Osgood field. I would very much like to thank the lovely Nikki Noya for being our photographer and all around great sport for coming out and helping us...

NYC Goes EV... Sort Of

Ken — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 21:38:00 GMT

So, it’s a beautiful day in NYC, Nikki and I are walking around central park, tomorrow is Thanksgiving and we’ve come in from Lakeville for a few days. We go to the zoo late morning and then we’re headed off to the champagne bar at the Plaza and coming out of Central Park I am struck by what????

Yes, two electric Mini’s!!! These are the same EV Mini’s that I posted about back in early August. I don’t know if this means I’m a total loser or not, but I am just really excited to see these. I’ve pondered on occasion how NYC would incorporate EV charging into the cities infrastructure. New York is a vertical city where pretty much every square inch of space is used up, if you can park on the street maybe you get an hour or two, or you park over night on the side streets, parking in the city sucks. When I lived there after college and kept a car, I had a garage, the car disappeared into the garage after I used it, I called up and it appeared. Most of the garages there do not have parking spaces, all the cars are just crammed in together. Of course since the parking industry works on a “How many cars can I get into the lot” type business model, maybe with the added revenue from EV charging they might be more open to fewer cars new revenue stream… or how’s about the city gives tax breaks for garages that have EV charging to offset the high cost of per-square-foot real estate in the city… there are lots of different options – I’m just glad to see these on the road, it’s a good start in the right dirction.

Al Gore Speaks At Mizner Park

Ken — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 15:37:00 GMT

While I am in CT visiting family, Chris & Spencer have been enjoying the South Florida fall weather and it seems have been politicking in the name of Electron. I got these photos sent to me by Chris the other day after he and Spencer went to hear Al Gore speak in Boca Raton. Chris had a chance to say hello and introduce Electron and what we’re doing in Florida, I don’t think Gore’s handlers allowed the photographer to take the shot of the Chris and Al high-fiving…

Any public figure, especially one who has a political resume such as Gore’s is going to be followed by a lot of controversy. Whether you love him or hate him, think him a hypocrite or hero – let’s not forget that Al Gore has really done a lot to bring the plight of the environment more into the public eye than ever before. Gore’s financial interest and ownership in Current Media, Kleiner Perkins, and Generation Investment Management are no secret – it would be a shame for us to stop listening to him or ignore his message outright – there can be little doubt that pollution, deforestration, our dependence on foreign oil, etc,, etc… is a problem. So whether you’re a treehugger, or you simply hate paying a lot of money to fill up your SUV it’s hard to deny the overall message. His lectures may be a little repetitive but it’s good that we have someone who seems focused on getting the message across – regardless of his personal interests.

Care to read about his reception, here's an article from the Palm Beach Post

EV Charging Stations Coming to Miami Beach (Hopefully)

Ken — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 15:42:00 GMT

Obviously from the past posts you can tell that I seem to have this thing for EV cars and have been obsessed by them for months. I guess it all stems back to that day last January where I got to test drive the custom converted EV Porsche out in Palm Beach and was a convert to the EV car – so I wait with baited breath until they are available to market. However, until EV’s start rolling off the assembly line in mid 2010 we still have a lot of work to do infrastructure-wise. Today, the City of Miami Beach gave Electron a nice mention in the Sunday Herald that we would be helping them to install the first charging stations from Coulomb Technologies in the city with the idea to build out the network over time. This is a project I’ve worked on for about 4 months now, so I’m super excited that perhaps by the middle of December we’ll see the first stations out there. Last hurdles to overcome, final contract with the City and vote by the commissioners at their meeting in December. Follow this link for the Herald Article.

Profile of Ken Fields & Nikki Noya and Electron Solar in South Of Fifth & The Islands Mag

Ken — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 14:08:00 GMT

Had a great little article written about myself and Nikki in South of Fifth and The Islands Magazine that came out the other day. In their own words – “South of Fifth & The Islands showcases and influences the passions, pastimes and purchases of the discerning private island residents and luxury condominium dwellers who live in some of the world’s most exclusive waterfront communities hugged by the azure waters of the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay, comprising the extravagant “suburbs” of Miami Beach.”. Fair enough. While not quite as famous as some of our other North Bay Road neighbors (Matt Damon, Michael Bay and Market America’s JR and Loren Ridinger)I guess Nikki and I made the cut as the Green Team…

Micro Grids - One Step Closer

Ken — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 12:38:00 GMT

There’s a great article in Green Tech Media yesterday – “Balance Energy Wants to Build Microgrids, Starting With San Diego”. Microgrids, covering cities and townships are necessary - it’s a great way to take pressure off of the national grid, keep power somewhat localized, reduce lose in transmission. Hopefully we’ll see more efforts like the San Diego initiative across the country.

A newly launched effort of BAE Systems that's employing one of

San Diego Gas & Electric's former smart grid gurus is now seeking to build and own "microgrid" projects across the country.

Balance Energy is a San Diego-based initiative of the U.S. arm of British defense contractor BAE Systems PLC. Though it has a short history, it launched its plans with great fanfare Tuesday in an after-hours presentation at the GridWeek conference in Washington, D.C.

"We supply end customers with renewable energy, and package it up into a microgrid," Terry Mohn, Balance Energy's chief innovation officer, said Tuesday.

Mohn until recently held the title of Technology Strategist for Sempra Energy, the parent company of utility San Diego Gas & Electric (see Smart Grid Q&A: Terry Mohn).

So perhaps it's not surprising that Balance Energy's first project is intended to be with San Diego Gas & Electric.

Mohn described it as a $212 million project aimed at providing the University of California at San Diego with its own microgrid – a self-contained electricity generation and distribution system that can serve as an island of stability amidst a wider-scale power grid.

Frankfurt Auto Show Goes EV

Ken — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 22:55:00 GMT

The Frankfurt Auto Show is arguably the big European auto event of the year (some might disagree and instead hold that title in reserve for The Gumball 3000)... This being an odd year, 2009, the show concentrated on passenger cars. While I did not attend the show I always love looking at all the photos of all the new cars, what's coming to market, what might be coming to market, ideas and concepts... well, the news this year is kind of amazing. Honestly read all the news stories you can on this - why? Because this year every auto manufacturer was out there showing off their all electric or hybrid electric vehicles. To note the picture below is Volkswagen's chief executive Martin Winterkorn showcasing the E-Up! (Photo credit to Ralph Orlowski/Reuters ).

So, if there is any doubt in anyone's mind as to where the auto industry is moving, well this should help solidify that, in The New Energy Economy fully EV or PHEV cars are the future and we should be psyched for it. As I've said all along, electric car are great, I loved riding around in the custom Porsche this past January and I can't wait for these guys (slightly more affordable) to be on the road. It also means that for our industry we (Electron Solar Energy) really need to also focus our energy (excuse the pun) on helping to enable this new infrastructure. Businesses and municipalities that want to stay ahead of the curve need to start thinking about how they are going to accomodate these vehicles - simple as that.
Here are a couple more photos, the Plug In Hybrid Prius and the electric Smart Car...

And here are a couple links to photo galleries that I've found of the show...
One from ABC News and the one from Green Tech Media

Bi Facial Solar Panels

Ken — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 15:03:00 GMT

There are a lot of panel options out there on the market - there performance and specifications don't need to be learned by everyone - that's for your installer / sales person to know. But I feel it is important that people know what options are out there. Yes, I used thin film flexible on my roof, not because they were the most efficient, but because they were easy to install, I had more than enough room on my roof and they had a Miami-Dade County NOA for hurricane ratings - no engineering needed.

However, one of my favorite panels these days which have not yet become commonplace are bi-facial panels - this is basically a panel where the wafers are sandwiched between two layers of glass but there is no need for a backing so that the wafers kind of hover inside the panel frame allowing light to come through. What makes them "bi-facial" is that the wafers absorb the reflected light from the other side of the panel too boosting their efficiency. I could go into a more technical explanation, but the whole idea here is keep it simple so that we all understand the application and their usefulness. So - a photo being worth a thousand words... check this out.

Very cool, great integration into the built environment - using the panels to help create a shaded area for the deck, allows light to sprinkle through...

Note : I don't think the Hong Kong School that I wrote about earlier uses bi-facial technology, I think they're just regular wafers custom designed to "float" between the layers of glass... for the photo you can see that the wafers are staggered in places to give it a more "artful" effect...

Miami Beach Home Show Wrap-Up

Ken — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:42:00 GMT

Broadly speaking the Home Show this past weekend at the Miami Beach Convention Center was a success. While the remnants of Hurricane Erika probably kept some people at home on Friday and Saturday, overall turnout was good. I’m happy to report that our booths were generally pretty crowded. While there were definitely a number of “window shoppers” who were simply curious about solar and renewable technology, there were a lot of people who were beginning to feel like they might want to start spending money again. The sticker shock for solar PV still gets people, butwith the rebates and tax incentives currently offering almost a 60% rebate off the sticker price people were interested in getting quotes and having follow up visits at their homes. One thing I noticed were a lot of first time home buyers who were taking advantage of the depressed real estate prices to purchase homes, particularly young couples who wanted their homes to be energy efficient and eco-friendly.

There was a lot of interest in solar hot water, which isgreat. Solar hot water is an easy technology and bang for your buck, at an installed price of $6,000 to $7,000, is a great way to get clients familiar with solar technology – savings off of your electric bill are typically in the20 - 25% range. When clients see how effective solar hot water is typically they’ll come back to us to find out what other energy saving tricks we have up our sleeves.

The Home Show is targeted to residential consumers, however, in such a small community many of the business owners also live in the neighborhood. The show also provided an excellent opportunity for us to catch up with some of our outstanding commercial / business owners with whom we have outstanding contracts, a number stopped by to visit our booth and chat with us. Thank you to all of them and we look forward to follow up conversations this coming week.

Miami Beach Home Show

Ken — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 17:37:00 GMT

Today is the start of the marathon Labor Day Weekend Home Show here at the Miami Beach convention center. These shows are always fun to go to, but tiring - standing on your feet all day long is not fun, but it's hard to beat in terms of the direct interaction with clients coming to you. While the real estate market is showing signs of improvement here in south Florida it's hard to tell right now how turnout is going to be, if people are simply going to be in window-shopping mode or if they're actually going to be up for buying. By this time, here at Electron, We have our system down pretty well with great show boards and good back-up info, marketing brochures etc, so let's see what happens.

Since we also just became authorized reseller's and installers for Coulomb Technologies Charge Point EV car chargers and network, I managed to grab us a demo unit to have for the weekend. In addition, we have the demo unit set up so that it can be seen on the Charge Point Network online locater... very cool.

Europe Bans Incandescent Bulbs

Ken — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 16:25:00 GMT

As of today, the EU has banned the sale and import of incandescent bulbs throughout the European Community. Overall a great step forward towards better energy efficiency. There are some opponents to the ban, but mostly on the grounds of aesthetics – that CFLs don’t give off as good a quality of light and that they take too long to “warm up” to full power, or that the bulbs use trace amounts of mercury.

I have used CFLs in my house for years, some of the bulbs can be a little harsh on the eyes, but you just have to find the right bulb, after a little trial and error I have lighting in my house the way I like it and I’ve gotten used to the slightly longer “warm up” time – so neither of those issues really bother me. For those who are concerned about the mercury – it goes without saying that where we really need to be heading is in the direction of using LED bulbs. LEDs are almost twice as expensive as CFLs – however they are much more efficient and last up to 10 years or more. I did have trouble with some LED bulbs as I was testing them out where about 1 in7 burned out after less than a year, but again these bulbs are new technology so in the coming year hopefully the manufacturing glitches will be taken care of. CFLs should be a bridge technology, until LEDs are perfected and we switch over to those. So, in other words, good job, EU way to go.

Message Board on ESRG

Ken — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 19:09:00 GMT

It looks like we have a nice little message board started on Investors Hub, it’s been going for a few months now and seems to have some recurring topics posted – most notably the need for news on the company and the concern over the number of proposals outstanding with the company and whether or not they are going to close, translating into actual revenue for the company. Both of these are excellent topics and perhaps I can shed a little light on them both.

The two topics are interrelated and can be summarily explained by saying that Electron is a relatively small company in a relatively nascent industry. The “New Energy Economy” is rapidly growing before our eyes,however, with the recession people are definitely more careful about how they are spending their dollars. Solar and other renewable energy improvements are costly and banks (finance companies) are being very cautious about who they are lending to.

News – no news isn’t necessarily bad news. I know that our investors want to hear about revenue generation, however there is a lot that weare doing right now which we feel is essential to building the foundation for the company in the future that does not contribute today to our bottom line –ie. Goodwill. We are actively working with local building authorities to help standardize the procedures for renewable energy installations. With local elections coming up in Nov we are actively supporting and trying to educate our officials and those who are running for office on how south Florida should Go Green. We are working with Mast Academy as a testing ground for many of our new products. We are building and training our sales force, growing our marketing presence and working diligently to build a qualified client base. Finally we are aggressively seeking out innovative ways to finance our clients needs, with tight lending restrictions across the board and the high cost of entry for renewable energy products we are working with multiple financing sources to create funding options for our clients.

Why Do We Worship The Electric Car

Ken — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 22:29:00 GMT

William Baldwin, Editor of Forbes had an interesting opinion column in the August 24^th issue – Why Do We Worship The Electric Car? Depending upon how you read the article it can be interpreted in many different ways. Basically the gist of the article is that we should be supporting the new “Green” ExxonMobil in their quest to reduce carbon emissions through natural gas. Natural gas is cleaner than coal, but then again, what isn’t – by Baldwin’s own admission NG is about 50% cleaner than coal and we should end subsidies for electric cars, because even though they’re electric, the power is still coming from somewhere that is probably dirty. Let’s sort of filter through what he’s saying and try to clear the air (no pun intended). We are in a transitional economy right now (in more ways than one)… we are moving away from the older fossil fuel economy of the industrial revolution and into the “New / Renewable Energy Economy”. Transitioning the world the renewable energy in the limited time that we have until we reach that global warming tipping point is a serious undertaking. Energy intertwines with all aspects of our life – energy is life. Pooh pooh’ing one technology over another is a pointless exercise – we need to be encouraging all avenues of exploration to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. Humans are creatures of habit, if we are left to our own devices as a population we’ll do nothing to change – we need to kind of be spoon fed, change needs to be fast and it needs to pervade every aspect of our life, from cars, to power plants. Collectively we behave as lemmings and are happy to follow the crowd. We need to introduce renewable energy (wind and solar) and electric cars into our collective culture until we wonder how we ever did without, we need to show that this technology can and does work, we need to support a wide range of technologies and give them the boost that they need to be widely adopted. As a tax payer I’m not excited about my taxes going up (now or in the future), but I do think subsidizing all these technologies is the right way forward to help push wider acceptance, by encouraging the early adopter consumers to go out and buy the products – early sales will increase demand, bringing the prices lower. Tax incentives and rebates are that needed initial push.

Restarting The Blog

Ken — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 15:24:00 GMT

I originally created this blog for potential clients so that they could follow the upgrades that I had made to my house so they could see a real world application of our technologies at work. After a summer hiatus, I think it is definitely time to continue this project, but from multiple angles. There is so much happening in the renewable energy industry right now and it is such an exciting time for Electron Solar Energy that I feel the blog should be expanded to touch not only on specific projects that we are working on, but also on where the industry is moving locally, regionally and nationally. This will also be a great avenue for ESRG to communicate with our shareholders. It is excessive and unnecessary to issue press releases on every little update with the company and what we are doing each day, a blog is of course perfect for that type of communication.

Great Cooper Mini-E Review / Test Site

Ken — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 12:09:00 GMT

Here's an amazing website by one of the lucky 500 who have been field testing the electric Mini Cooper or Mini-E. I thought that this would be relevant to our blog since we over here at Electron Solar are applying to become a dealer and installer for Coulomb Technologies EV car chargers. EV's are coming no two ways about it, every major auto manufacturer has some version of an all-electric or a hybrid electric (PHEV) in the works for release in 2010. So for businesses and municipalities it would be a grave mistake to ignore the need for at least a basic EV charging infrastructure. I'll let the website speak for itself, but the short version is that these guys loved the Mini-E, they gave it a great review, with only a couple of minor drawbacks to the vehicle - lack of a back seat, relatively low range, 150 miles, giving you a range of 70 miles if you have to drive back, but keep in mind, for those of us who live in Miami area, 150 miles will get you up to Palm Beach or down to Key West for a weekend...

So, for all of you naysayers out there, 2010 is the Unofficial Official Year of the EV...

Hong Kong School & Building Integrated PV

Ken — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 22:51:00 GMT

People have this image of solar being these big unattractivepanels that sit on your roof on this giant metal rack. They think eyesore. Notso. Obviously as you’ve seen the photos from my roof one option is the thinfilm flexible that sticks to your roof and has an ultra low profile – what arethey an 1/8 of an inch thick? So obviously that’s one version. Another versionthat I love is the bi-facial solar PV panel that acts as a skylight… Thepicture below is from the Ma Wan school project in Hong Kong, where solarcell’s were placed between sheets of glass to form this really great skylightidea that integrates PV into the building itself (BIPV – Building IntegratedPV). This installation was done in August 2004, so I don’t think these are truebi-facial panels, but the effect is simple enough to show. They look reallygood.

However, since this particular install bi-facial technologyhas come into its own and is now sort of available. I say sort of because there’sbasically only two companies manufacturing them right now – Sanyo has anexcellent bi-facial which is available and Hitachi has the technology and frommy understanding has not fully ramped up production so they’re a little harderto come by. The added kicker to bifacial panels is that they have higherefficiencies than standard mono-facial panels. The sun hits the panel creatingpower on one side and then the reflected light from the other side absorbs alittle more light… so the overall efficiencies of these guys are about 15% orbetter. Not too bad actually.

Mast Wind Results

Ken — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 22:51:00 GMT

Well, I promised you data from the wind study at Mast Academy. We took two readings in two separate areas around the campus. I’ve taken images from google maps and labeled the two spots. Site A the readings were taken for about 10 days, funny enough even thought it was in the middle of a big field, so therefore seemed more open, in point of fact, the wind resources there were pretty much zero. Our second reading was taken for about 2 weeks at site B – seemingly a noisy or crowded area (parking lot, buildings to the east and north, trees to the west), however, the winds were given a nice opening between the trees and the buildings from bay to ocean so the readings were much stronger.

The anemometer takes readings every tens minutes… the below image is just a simple graphical representation of the data – Purple is the average minimum, Blue average and Yellow max speed. The running average for the period was about 3.6, the min was about 1.1 and the max a bit more than 5. I don’t want to bore you with numbers but the basic gist is this…

On the average low, on a day to day basis there was enough wind for the turbine to reach “On” speeds

At a running average of 3.6 a turbine would run at approximately 55% max output.

So that’s not too bad, while we would rather see more wind, this shows that there is enough wind and at what speeds it would be economically feasible to install a turbine, not ideal, but not bad.

Keep in mind, this is in Southern Florida where the big wind maps say Florida has near zero potential for wind power – so the study serves also to prove the point that small wind is very different from the large scale utility scale wind farms that we’re all kind of familiar with.

Wind Power At Mast

Ken — Sun, 10 May 2009 19:00:00 GMT

If you look at the wind maps for the US, for the most part they tell you that Florida basically doesn't have any wind resources. However, for those of us that live down here we know that there are pockets of places where there is a pretty steady wind a good part of the time. Jokester's will say that we either have too much wind, or not enough... hahahaaa... funny. However, that being said, right along the beaches there always seems to be a nice gentle breeze coming off the ocean. For those of you who have been following our work, you know that we've been helping out at Mast Academy over on Key Biscayne for the past couple months, working with them to help manage their energy consumption in an effort to build a template which schools can use. With Mast Academy right on the water, and with their curiousity for all things green and sustainable, we thought this would be the ideal place to start taking wind measurements. So, sure enough with our friend Dirk and Tony from Green EcoSys, we set up the first anemometer over at the school. Couple neat pics and hopefully in a month or so we'll have the first results.

I know guys, this one isn't exactly visually exciting, but...

Up and spinning... tune in a month or so to check out the results...

$6.50 a Watt Solar Myth

Ken — Sun, 03 May 2009 16:51:00 GMT

I am writing this particular entry because last weekend Electron Solar participated in a whole host of home / green shows down here in Miami... at one of the shows, Chris Quinn, our CEO ran into some of the competition who was touting $6.50 a watt solar PV including cost of install... On Monday Chris did a little poking around to see who this guy was and it turns out he has a history of either taking the deposit and running, playing bait and switch, or simply when the real quote comes in jacks up the price...

I guess the point of writing this is to address the myth of $6.50 a watt solar. People, let's start with one of the basic tenants of consumerism - you get what you pay for, or in some cases you don't get squat and you still pay something for it. It's important for us to write this article because the last time solar had such favorable incentives there were a ton of questionable individuals out there selling pipe dreams and running off with the cash, giving the industry a bad name.

Can you find solar for $6.50 a watt, sure, the economy is in the crapper, there is lots of over supply and there are lots of people out there who have contracts with manufacturers who need to buy at one price to keep their preferential status. Does this mean that will trickle down to the consumer? Maybe. You might get a deal, you might get ripped off, you might look at one panel in the show room and then the installers show up with scratch and dent.

You want to get a look at what the industry uses as it's general guide book - consider this kind of the Kelley Blue Book of the renewables industry - www.aeesolar.com/catalog.html

Go into the PDF catalog and check out some of the price points for panels, go to a good manufacturer like Mitsubishi, and divide the price by the rated watts and you'll see that the panels alone go for anywhere from $7.20 to $6.20 - and keep in mind, that's just for the panel, that doesn't include framing, wiring, inverter, permitting, installation. Yes, a reputable dealer will get you a better price and will be able to get that number down to a total installed cost between $10.00 and $9.00 a watt, maybe even less, but that's pushing it.

So please, please, please do yourself a favor and if you're thinnking about going solar, come to Electron first (hahahahahaaaa)... no but seriously, look carefully at what you're buying and who you're dealing with, all panels are not the same, all dealers are not the same. There are a lot of quick buck artists out there looking to take advantage of the new Green Economy... please don't get taken for a ride, do it right and be happy.