Breaking News: Sunday, April 15, 2012

Click on More for details and more news.

• WAFF-TV Solar Special
• ASA President Morton Archibald on Photovoltaics
• ASA Founder Al Orilion on Solar Hot Water
• Firefly needs you
• ASA at Green U
• More Technical Information

Thought for the day: Sunday, April 15, 2012

Question: What is the one thing every single human being on the planet can do that's considered green? Whatever the answer is, multiply that by billions of human beings and you create some noticeable Green results.

Tell Mother you love her! Celebrate Earth Day 2012 by learning how you can preserve future life on Mother Earth. If we don’t make some changes soon, where will our grandchildren live?
by Morton Archibald, Huntsville, Alabama USA

The March Photon magazine cover proclaims “PV Parked in Alabama: Dim prospects for accelerating solar without changes.” But in Huntsville, retired Army General Jim Pillsbury is heading the Alabama effort of the “Sun Shot” initiative. Patterned after JFK’s “Moon Shot” program, DoE wants research and development to bring solar costs down to $0.6 per kWh. General Pillsbury (US Army, Retired) believes that if we can make solar practical and popular in Huntsville, the rest of Alabama will follow.

In a briefing to General Pillsbury, I listed the three biggest problems facing solar in Alabama today, in order of priority, as:

1. Education
2. Education
3. Education

In the early 60’s there was still a law on the books that required that anyone bringing a “horseless carriage” into town must send a flagman 100 yards ahead, carrying a lantern if at night, to warn others of its approach. I don’t know when the law was written—perhaps around the turn of last century, but obviously the “horseless carriage” was not then seen to be the defining future of personal transportation. Oh, by the way, the town was Detroit.

Solar is the 21^st Century’s “horseless carriage.” We need education efforts to bring it out of the dark. Solar is too little understood and often feared by engineers and architects, legislators, utility companies, the general public, and the dinosaurs of big oil. Conoco-Phillips just spent $75 million producing a series of TV ads telling the public how clean and plentiful natural gas is as an energy source. The ads ignore all the dangers of hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” used to get the gas out of the ground. Matching the TV ads is a $75 million lobbying effort.

Professional engineers (PEs) are those engineers certified to look out for public safety. I have gotten daily news feeds for PEs for over a year now. Since last March, the number one concern of PEs for public safety has been nuclear safety. Second on the list, recently moving to number 1, is fracking. Third is pipeline safety. The three top PE daily concerns on the list, of a dozen or so, are energy.

We can’t hope to spend $150 million to match the one oil company’s campaign to promote oil and gas, but we can do a lot better than Proton magazine’s approximation that Alabama PV is parked. One way to do that is with “Firefly,” the ASA solar trailer. We have a number of opportunities to use firefly to bring our message to the general public:

• April 14th, Earth Day, Florence
• April 21st, Earth Day, Huntsville
• June 23rd, Solar Day, Decatur
• August 25th, Green-U, Huntsville
• October 6th, National Solar Tour
• More opportunities that ASA Solarites and other members can develop

We are within $600 of being able to meet our first two obligations. Firefly has wings—the solar panels donated by Renogy. Now she needs a brain—a $600 charge controller. Can you help us put Firefly on the road to solar education?

If your dues are current, please consider paying next year’s dues now. If your dues are not current, please renew now. If you are not a member, please consider joining now. Please consider buying a lifetime membership for $250 for regular members or $150 for seniors. Regardless of your status, please consider making a donation for Firefly today. We are so close to finishing her.

Morton

We have been asked to bring Firefly to The Shoals for Earth Day on Saturday, April 14th. ASA volunteers are working frantically to get her finished in time, but there is another snag. A critical piece of equipment, the battery controller we thought was going to cost $100, will actually cost us $600. We would also like to buy a nice inverter, but this is not critical right now.

Firefly now has her wings. As a minimum we need to complete the supporting frame underneath the three solar panels. We can then attach the hinges to let the array tilt up to an optimum angle. We then have to wire the panels and connect them to the new controller.

If time and money permits, we want to install an electric winch to tilt the array to the optimum angle. Since this angle changes throughout the day, an electric tilt system will help us adjust tilt easily. We also want to install meters showing the current status of the array, the controller, the battery, and other components. Again we need money and manpower to finish this project.

Please consider making a donation now and possibly coming by Morton’s house on Saturday to work on Firefly. She has so much potential, and we are so close to making her functional. Won’t you help?

The work parties are each Saturday from 10 AM to 3 PM at 2117 Rothmore Drive SW Huntsville. From Memorial Parkway, go west on Rothmore from just north of the Mountain Gap Road traffic light -- it’s right across from the Bojangles Fried Chicken place. Go ½ mile and take the first left turn onto Pembrook. My driveway is the first on the left. Call Morton at 256-658-5189 for more info.

Several people have asked me for more information on why we need a $600 piece of equipment for Firefly. The battery controller is essential to regulate the fluctuating output of the solar panels into a steady charge for the battery. The three panels can produce up to 135 volts direct current, but the 12-volt nominal battery needs closer to 15 volts to charge properly. The Outback Flexmax 60 will handle up to 150 volts DC and 60 amps of power. We can later add another array of three panels and still use this one controller. We can also add remote metering and logging or use the controller's internal readout to measure system performance. This controllor usually costs $750, but we can get one for about $600. OutBack's industry leading Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) Charge Controllers offer a history of reliability and durability. Innovative solar harvesting and battery charging algorithms allow us to maximize our systems potential and can increase our renewable energy yield by up to 30%. The controller's brochure is available at http://www.outbackpower.com/docman/230911404593998000160100_RevE_FLEXmax_Spec-Sheet.pdf. Or does anybody have a good quality controller they can donate to Firefly? The Voc will be 135 volts DC maximum, and the maximum amperage will be 15 amps.

Firefly gets her Wings.

Steve checks the design against plans behind Firefly's solar panels.
Thanks again to Reynogy for donating our modules for Firefly's PVC array.

Alabama has a new NABCEP installer.

What is NABCEP, and why should Alabamians care about it?

Alabama has no requirements for solar installation. Caveat emptor (Let the buyer beware) is especially applicable in our state. While all Alabama Solar Association Solarites (professional members) are proven to be highly qualified, NABCEP is a worldwide standard that guarantees that specific solar professional has the knowledge and experience to design and build a system that will perform well under very specific conditions found on your site.

NABCEP (www.nabcep.org) is the North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners. It is the “gold standard” for PV and solar heating installation certification. Designed to raise industry standards and promote consumer confidence, NABCEP offers certification and certificate programs to renewable energy professionals throughout North America and around the world. when your installer is NABCEP-certified, you can be assured they know what they are doing.

Certification of a profession refers to a generally voluntary process in which the certifying organization formally grants recognition to those who meet certain predetermined standards or qualifications. It usually includes an examination of some kind to assess the candidates’ qualifications. Certification offers the public a high degree of protection because practitioners have to meet standards or qualifications and pass an exam, and they do so voluntarily. Developing a certification is a complex and time-consuming process and requires a strong administrative organization in order to maintain its quality. Over a thousand certification programs exist in the U.S., qualifying professionals from crane operators to energy efficiency experts, from financial planners to automobile technicians.

Until the Wright Brothers began the first school of aviation in a cotton field south of Montgomery in 1910, there was no standard certification for pilots. There was no need. There were so few airplanes aloft, that pilots pretty much learned by trial and error. Today extensive and tough certifications guard pilots, passengers, and innocents on the ground. I can’t imagine flying with an uncertified pilot unless I were teaching him or her as part of the certification process.

Voluntary certification programs accomplish three important goals:

1. They provide a measure of protection to the public by giving them a credential for judging the competency of practitioners;
2. They provide practitioners with a way to distinguish themselves from their competition; and
3. By potentially improving quality, they improve the public perception of the given occupation, helping increase the industry’s prominence.

The NABCEP process has been developed and designed carefully following professional credentialing guidelines. Standards, developed by subject matter experts, have been set and the eligibility requirements are reasonably achievable being based on extensive input from stakeholders and deliberation among installers. NABCEP has built a transparent, non-discriminatory program implemented with fair procedures and due process.

Benefits of certification exist for both installers and consumers:

For installers:

• Identifies installers as professionals, instilling consumer confidence in their work
• Validates extra resources spent on training and gaining experience
• Allows for installer mobility as the market moves from state to state
• Allows installers to distinguish their skills and experience in the field

For consumers:

• Provides a means to identify qualified installers, promoting confidence in the work performed
• Preserves consumer choice, maintaining access to both certified and uncertified installers

For years, Daryl Bergquest of Royal was the only NABCEP-certified installer. He is still the only fully certified PV (photovoltaic) installer here.

Jeff Max of ACME Solar Works www.acmesolarworks.net in Summerdale became Alabama’s only NABCEP-certified Solar Thermal installer.

Morton Archibald, ASA president and chief engineer of Affordable Energy Solutions www.getaffordableenergy.com in Huntsville has earned the NABCEP Entry Level certification. The NABCEP Entry Level Exam is a way for candidates to demonstrate that they have achieved a basic knowledge of the fundamental principles of the application, design, installation and operation of PV systems. It’s basically a license to learn.

The nest step for Morton is to gain some more experience and then take the NABCEP PV Installer’s exam. NABCEP Certified PV Installers are highly experienced individuals who have passed a very rigorous examination and have demonstrated the capability to supervise complete system installations. They must have a detailed working knowledge of the electrical, standards, and accepted industry practice associated with PV installations.

Please consider coming to help us this Saturday, March 24^th. We meet at Morton’s house at 2117 Rothmore Drive SW in Huntsville at 10:00 AM. Go west off South Memorial Parkway onto Rothmore just north of the Mountain Gap Road traffic light and directly across from Bojangles Fried Chicken. Go about a half mile, past the house with a circle drive, and take the first left turn onto Pembrook Drive. My driveway is the first on the left.

Baby Firefly is Born

During the big grid-power outage of April-May 2011, Dad and I set up a couple sets of ASA's solar panels. We used them to recharge 12V marine batteries we purchased Thursday after the storms.

In an ideal situation, the panels would be permanently mounted to the house in a calculated orientation that maximizes input from the average position of the sun over a year. In this temporary setting, I just wanted to be able to move the panels now and then during the day to track the sun. One idea (pictured above) popped into my mind.

Now this stuff was quickly and temporarily set on my son's wagon. Perhaps in a more functional setup, the panels would be mounted a little higher up and be adjustable to accommodate various angles of elevation, and the battery would sit as low in the center of the wagon as possible, perhaps even recessed in a cutout in the floor of the wagon. The space between the battery and the panels would provide a small storage area for the controller, a small toolbox, etc. A modified wagon might be a good way to roll a setup from the car to the final display location at events, minimizing setup and tear-down times.

It’s not a very big system, but the 45-watt output will power a few CFL or LED light fixtures, recharge small appliance batteries, and even run a small refrigerator.

Let’s renew our efforts to complete Firefly into a working solar power generating station. It sure would have been helpful after the April 27^th storm or other storms yet to come. Folks on the Gulf Coast would have loved to have had some solar trailers after Katrina.

Steve Archibald
Information Director

With three damaged Japanese nuclear plants leaking and possibly melting down, Americans are naturally concerned about the safety of nuclear energy. TVA has proposed replacing existing dirty coal-fired plants with cleaner nuclear reactors (see below). This is a mixed blessing. Nuclear releases less harmful pollutants into the atmosphere, unless something goes terribly wrong, as it did in Japan.

The International Atomic Energy Agency placed a 19-mile no-fly zone around the damaged plants. The U.S. Navy Tuesday detected low levels of airborne radiation at Yokosuka and Atsugi bases, 200 miles away from the nuclear plants. Dangerous levels of radiation are still leaking from one crippled plant forced Japan to order 140,000 people to seal themselves indoors after an explosion and a fire escalated the crisis spawned by the earthquake and tsunami.

Japanese officials told the IAEA that the reactor fire was in a storage pond and that "radioactivity is being released directly into the atmosphere." Long after the fire was extinguished, a Japanese official said the pool, where used nuclear fuel is kept cool, might be boiling.

PV to the rescue! Workers set up a solar power system for a temporary office building in the town of Minamisanriku, Miyagi Prefecture, March 31. (Daisuke Uragami AP) Japanese engineers should consider replacing electricity they were getting from the disabled nuclear reactor swith photovoltaic-produced electricity the original nuclear power – solar.

We advocate nuclear power from that star we call “the sun” from 93 million miles away.

TVA publishes the master plan for serving 9 million people in seven states through 2030

TVA has completed its Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) titled TVA's Energy and Environmental Future. This plan and the associated Environmental Impact Statement are the result of extensive analysis and collaboration with TVA partners and stakeholders. Alabama Solar Association made verbal and written input into the plan. Read the entire plan at http://www.tva.com/environment/reports/irp.

The final IRP supports TVA's comprehensive mission of service, which includes meeting the electric power needs of its customers in a reliable, affordable and sustainable manner. The plan identifies the resources that will be needed to satisfy expected energy demand in the Tennessee Valley region over the next 20 years. It is consistent with TVA's Environmental Policy and it supports TVA's renewed vision to be one of the nation's leading providers of low-cost and cleaner energy by 2020. We still believe it does not give adequate weight to the potential of rooftop solar to increase renewable energy contribution and reduce transmission difficulties.

The IRP is intended to equip TVA to meet its customers' needs effectively while addressing the substantial challenges that face the electric utility industry. The planning direction it recommends will hopefully give TVA flexibility to make sound choices amid economic and regulatory uncertainty. The recommended planning direction tries to balance costs, energy efficiency and reliability, environmental responsibility, and competitive prices for customers. Components of the recommended planning direction include:

Note¹ – This range includes EEDR savings achieved through 2010. The 2020 range for EEDR and renewable energy does not preclude further investment in these resources during the following decade.
Note² – TVA's existing wind contracts that total more than 1,600 MW are included in this range. Values are nameplate capacity. Net dependable capacity would be lower.
Note³ – TVA has previously announced plans to idle 1,000 MW of coal-fired capacity, which is included in this range. MW values based on maximum net dependable capacity.
Note⁴ – This is the expected size of a new pumped-storage hydro facility.
Note⁵ – The completion of Watts Bar Unit 2 represents the lower end of this range.
Note⁶ – Up to 900 MW of new coal-fired capacity is recommended between 2025 and 2029.
Note⁷ – The completion of John Sevier combined cycle plant represents the lower end of this range.

Alabama Solar Association applauds the plan’s proposal to increase efforts on energy efficiency and renewables, but we question the wisdom and the ability of TVA to meet the timetable for nuclear. We fully support nuclear power, as long as it coed from that big nuclear power plant 93 million miles away we call the Sun. we will watch anxiously over the next years as the plan develops. We believe the inevitable spike in energy prices worldwide will drive more conservation and renewable fuels into the mix.