OverKill Solar
May 13, 2010
Evacuated Tube Collectors
- Flat Plate Solar Collectors
Over the past 12 months I have taken the time to diligently re-educate myself about the practical use of Solar applications. I began in earnest with Solar 2009 held in Buffalo, New York. I went there specifically to get a handle on what is new or practical in the industry and what is hype or spin. I was specifically interested in the evolvement of Solar Thermal applications. I had installed Solar Hot Water and Radiant Floor Heat in the late 70′s and early 80′s and believed them to be cost effective and practical. After a year of studying their applications and being a technical adviser to projects where solar thermal was installed–I still do with caveats. I believe you have to differentiate and define the parameters of how much water you need to heat and to what temperature. Hence the word “OverKill Solar.”
I had visited the Henry Gifford’s Web Site, www.energysavingsscience.com, during the early winter of 2009 and was turned on to a book called Solar Hot Water Systems, Lessons Learned 1977 to Today by Tom Lane. Henry Gifford is a former heating systems contractor and an energy efficiency expert who believes that results tell the story, after occupancy, not the awarding of a designation. He is especially harsh on LEED accreditation. In defense of the LEED program, it hasn’t even reached its teenage years, so it has a lot to learn. You have to start somewhere and USGBC had the guts to develop LEED and it is still evolving–not part of this blog.
On Henry’s site he referenced Tom Lane’s book as the only book you will need on Solar System Design. What he should have said was Solar Thermal Design-meaning the use of solar to heat water for various applications. I ordered the book and then went to Solar 2009 to take a course from Tom. It was worth the time, travel and expense. Tom Lane was my kind of teacher, practical with common sense. I respected what he had to say to the point of taking his recommendation to attend a Solar Instruction Seminar in Florida being put on by a manufacturer of Solar Thermal Panels.
First a quick explanation of Solar differences. Solar Photovoltaics, the glamor child of the alternative energy field, is about generating electricity. Solar Thermal is about heating water. Solar Thermal has been around the United States since first commercially introduced in the 1890′s in California. It is a system that has gotten the bugs out. It is economically justified for commercial and multi-family(apartment, condo’s, townhouses)applications without subsidies. Depending on what state you are in, and other contributing factors, Solar Thermal can be cost justified, when applied with common sense to single family residential applications.
When I say common sense I mean defining what it is you want to accomplish and then proceeding to plan accordingly. Too many times in the United States we jump on the glamor product without doing research. In the Solar Thermal Industry one of those is evacuated tube collectors. To heat water for applications that require temperatures of 150 degrees or lower, Flat Plate Collectors have it all over vacuum tubes in cost, durability and effectiveness. If you need water hotter than 150 degrees in winter and 180 degrees in summer, vacuum tubes may be a good fit. But the majority of applications in this country can be economically accomplished with Flat Plate Collectors, besides being safer and many produced in the United States.
This Over-Kill was demonstrated to me first hand a couple of months ago. I saw an over-designed commercial system that couldn’t be installed as designed because there was no room for the specified 550 gallon storage tank. The system uses vacuum tubes(evacuated tubes) when flat plate collectors would have done the job just as efficiently and would have been a better economic approach. Plus the system could have been designed to utilize the area allocated for storage or pre_heating while taken full of advantage or REC’s and other credits. As it turned out, two 120 gallon hot water solar storage tanks were substituted as pre-heaters to the main unit. A serious problem developed after installation, as the evacuated tubes heated the water so hot(over 190 degrees), that the glue used on the CPVC (wrong) pipe used to take the heated water from the storage tank to the primary water heating unit loosened and the system piping exploded and super heated water went everywhere. Luckily no one was hurt! There were no heat dissipators on the vacuum tube system and copper piping should have been used, but that is a story for another day.
I had observed during this same time period, three single family residential systems utilizing vacuum tubes and had seen excessive heat generation for domestic water provisions, even with heat dissipators. I opened the storage closet where the solar thermal hot water tank was located. I was blown over by the heat. I then looked outside and saw this ugly black box sitting on the siding___it was a heat dissipator__to get rid of excess heat. Why would anyone pay additional costs to heat up something that you have to discharge the heat from. To me that is like paying for 10 gallons of fuel and running 2 gallons of it on the ground because the tank won’t hold it. I am reminded of using a hammer to drive a thumb tack–over kill solar.
We will discuss this evolution of solar thermal more, but seeing first hand the overkill of a vacuum tube system, when applied to common residential water heating, convinced me again of the need for common sense, practical designs when using solar applications. I am a great believer in Solar applications. I applaud the efforts, but I am more a believer in applying it using (CECSEE) Cost Effective, Common Common Sense, Energy Efficient___Green standards.
Home Star-An Energy Efficiency Program that needs to put dollars in America’s pockets if it is to work.
May 4, 2010
Home Star-an Energy Efficiency Bill working its way through Congress is marketed as the next great thing to get people to work with the side benefit of making America’s built environment more energy efficient. If the thinking isn’t changed as to financing, it will never make the impact it is counting on. It is a jobs bill that still requires Americans to reach into their pockets, pockets that aren’t filled with much cash at the moment or easy access to credit.
A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to attend the National Capital Contractor Forum in Manassas, Virginia. I attended to get some insight into the Home Performance by Energy Star pilot program being introduced to Northern Virginia. It had some great sponsors and some people who really care about what is happening in the Energy Efficiency business around Washington, D.C.
The Forum, as with many national home energy symposiums, conventions or conferences lately, pushed and discussed the Home Star initiative making its way through Congress. It is being hailed as the Nirvana for jump starting home energy efficiency upgrades. In February I was inundated with Home Star at the RESNET conference in Raleigh. Why? For those in the Energy Rating business it is a job creation bonanza.
Until the Contractors Forum I was assuming that Home Star was an energy efficiency program. I was wrong. I happen to ask about monitoring utility bills after the improvements and was brought up short by the speaker. I was told outright, “This isn’t about results, this is about creating jobs.” Well, results are my primary reason for being involved in the Sustainable, Energy Efficiency movement (I prefer this description to “Green” Building–a totally overused word describing everything from diapers to windows).
Nobody wants to see the building economy recover more than I do. But I don’t want the United States to create an entire contractor base focused on a government program requirement, all the while knowing nothing about what the program is meant to accomplish(measurable reductions in energy use–energy efficiency). Creating jobs in one thing, creating a skilled workforce that can improve American lives is another. I want contractors who know not only what they are doing, but why they are doing it, which is to get energy efficiency results that save consumers, builders and businesses money. When contractors know this and can take some pride in what they accomplish, they might actually stick with it as a career and the U.S. becomes better for it.
The Home Star program has incentives built in and two different tiers. One tier, Silver, would give a homeowner up to $3000.00 back on a $6,000.00 investment. There was a speaker, Ray Walsh, who related the situation to disposable income. Good analogy. His comment was if one had a choice to spend $6000.00 on their home, and they would get $3000.00 of it back or rent a home at the beach for their family for a couple weeks and take a vacation, what would they choose? Energy Efficiency expenditures compete directly with disposable income, which in this down economy is substantially reduced for the average working family.
Say I was going to spend $3000.00 out of my own pocket to improve my homes energy efficiency and save $50/month in my utility costs by doing so. This equates to $600/year, or a 5 year payback, a 20% return on my investment. That’s a nice return. But unfortunately I am probably not going to reach into my pocket and spend $3000.00. I will probably spend some of that money on a vacation, a car, something I want and need, and continue to pay the utility bill of $50 more, or $600.00 for the year. Why? I want some higher prioritized things for my family or me, then energy efficiency, which I can’t see, feel or touch.
That is the problem with any program at this point that requires a homeowner to reach into their pocket. Many of them don’t have it and if they do, they might think of many better things to do with the money. No overhaul of the existing buildings infrastructure is going to get anywhere unless it puts money in the consumer’s pocket. A business owner or high income individual may be attracted to tax credits offered and can afford to look at the expenditure as an investment, but the common worker, struggling to make ends meet, is not spending money on energy efficiency unless there is something in it for them and that something is not usually a savings of $50 a month after spending $3000.00 out of pocket.
I am not talking about new construction here. Anyone who doesn’t pay diligent attention to cost effective energy conservation, energy efficiency or sustainable building practices when building a new structure barks at the moon. They are loony. But an existing home owner(they are different then an existing building owner), no matter how much common sense it makes, is not reaching in their pocket to do it, unless they are forced to or can see some substantial jingle in their pocket.
If Home Star was set up with a financing package, meaning the $6,000.00 that is spent is entirely financed, and the homeowner still got their $3000.00 back from Federal Government, you might see some of this actually working. For example I spend $6,000 on energy efficiency upgrading and that entire $6,000.00 is financed. Now I get $3000.00 back from the government. I got three grand in my pocket that I can use–I like that. Going a step further I have say a low interest loan(3%)for the $6,000 that has to be paid back in 6 years. My payments would be approximately $92/month for 6 years. I am now saving $50/month on my energy bill or net out of pocket of $42/month for 6 years. This totals approximately $3000.00 out of pocket, or nothing, because I got that $3000.00 up front to use. And if the appraisers and the banks of the United States counted in my energy efficiency upgrades by increasing the value of my house, I know have something more when I sell or refinance.
This is just a hypothetical example and some out of the box thinking. It may seem fiscally irresponsible getting the government involved, but new thinking is what it is going to take to get Americans to upgrade the energy efficiencies of their homes, when they don’t have to. Frankly I believe the government should hold lending institutions feet to the fire to provide this type of loan. It is the very least they could do and it would go a long way towards removing this foul taste I have in my mouth from the government’s bank bail outs and creeps pocketing huge bonus’s when they still haven’t done squat to help Americans pull us out of this recession.
Energy efficiency is invisible, it only shows up on a utility bill in savings. Americans usually invest for an income or appreciation, they just don’t look at utility savings as income, try as we might to convince them otherwise. Until we figure out how to put money in building owners or homeowners pockets, they aren’t inclined to fork out the cash and in this economic climate, they are less inclined to do so.
We have subsidized bankers, car manufacturers, big oil, every one and almost anyone lately, but if America is going to change in totality the existing homes in this country, we are going to have to finance it, not just subsidize it. The Federal Government can mandate it for their existing buildings, they have the money and the control, but to force homeowners or building owners to do the same they gotta get some money in their pocket, not ask them to spend some. A financing program like this would go a long way towards getting the existing built environment more energy efficient and create jobs at the same time.
The above is strictly my opinion. The numbers were based on the Silver Star prescriptive path of the Home Star initiative. To achieve Gold Star performance path incentives, the homeowner has to spend more to get more and the same principles would apply.