Beutelevision » Solar

San Francisco: Much Sun, Little Rain

Thomas Beutel — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 00:00:45 +0000

San Francisco is known for it’s fog, not it’s sunshine, but that’s mostly in the summer months, mid June to the end of August. Right now in January it should be raining, but we have gotten precious little rain this January. As evidence I present you with my solar panel production, which shows a remarkably sunny month:

As you can see, many sunny days, but we need the rain.

For-Profit Do-Gooders

Thomas Beutel — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 18:07:36 +0000

Economist magazine has a great article on for-profit activism and mentions both 1BOG.org and Virgance.

1BOG helped me get a solar panel system last year and I’m am still delighted with how well the whole process went. Thank you again 1BOG and congrats to you and Virgance!

The One-Word Answer To Our Energy Problems: Electrification

Thomas Beutel — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 14:48:33 +0000

Jeffrey Leonard writes about The Plug In Revolution in the Washington Monthly. He says:

Electrification as a rallying cry for American energy policy isn’t perfect, but in my view it’s the best and perhaps only way to get us to a clean and secure energy future.

I think he makes an elegant case for moving away from oil and toward electricity.

Solar is on Common Ground Mag’s Radar

Thomas Beutel — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 17:33:42 +0000

Common Ground Magazine talks about One Block Off The Grid (1BOG) in their latest “On Our Radar” column.

GM Volt could get $7,500 tax credit

Thomas Beutel — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 19:54:34 +0000

The financial rescue bill (aka the bailout) contains substantial tax credits for plug-in hybrid vehicles sold after 2008. This could mean about $7,500 dollars for a GM Volt, based on the size of its battery.

Here are some links:

Green Car Congress on the senate bill

Green Car Advisor at Edmunds

If you have solar panels on your roof, any plugin hybrid vehicle has the potential of making your investment in solar pay off even sooner.

Update: Here is GM-Volt.com’s announcement of the tax credit

Solar roof update

Thomas Beutel — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 21:19:05 +0000

We’ve signed off on getting a 3.85KWh solar photovoltaic system. Return on investment will be 10-12 years, probably less if we get a plugin-hybrid electric car in 3 or 4 years. The roofers will be here tomorrow to mark the joists, and sometime in the next week or two, the racks will go in.

I’ll be commenting more a bit later about our installer, Real Goods Solar, but so far they have been FABULOUS!

1 Block Off The Grid Jumpstarts Solar in San Francisco

Thomas Beutel — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 00:57:38 +0000

The exciting news is that 1BOG has selected an installation partner and the installer will be visiting my house tomorrow. I can’t wait to see what the whole process is like.

I have two questions in particular:

1) I will definitely be getting a plugin hybrid car when they are available in 2-3 years. I’ve been told that driving a PHEV about 10K mile a year would be easily covered by an additional 1.5KW of solar panels. Should I get a larger system now, even though PG&E will not pay me for electricity over and above my usage? Or should I wait until I actually get the car?

2) I live west of Twin Peaks, meaning that July and August are foggy for most of the day. Should I get a larger system to compensate?

The pricing is pretty darn good even for the larger systems, so even if PG&E gets electricity for free, I don’t think I would worry too much about it.

By the way, the installer is Real Goods Solar. They have a wonderful store called Solar Living Center up in Hopland.

Alternative Energy From a Variety of Sources

Thomas Beutel — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:50:28 +0000

Lot’s of interesting news in the alternative energy field:

MIT creates a catalyst based on photosysthesis that produces hydrogen from water.

LS9 uses synthetic biology to produce oil from algae.

Energy Innovations gets the first UL listing for a solar concentrator.

British Motors installs 287 KW solar roof in San Francisco

Thomas Beutel — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 23:53:03 +0000

It’s enough to power 80 homes in SF and it offsets 14 million pounds of carbon over its lifetime, according to this Marketwatch article.

Crowds Overwhelm GoSolarSF Fair, Everyone Wants Solar

Thomas Beutel — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 22:27:37 +0000

I spent some time this afternoon speaking with various solar installers at the GoSolarSF fair at the Eureka Valley rec center. To say the fair was crowded would be an understatement. I wasn’t able to speak to most of the installers–the crowds were too deep. It’s fantastic to see this amount of interest in solar.

Of course, San Francisco is doing its part by providing incentives, which along with state and soon to expire federal incentives makes it a no brainer. A typical $25,000 system will cost about half that after incentives, and with ever increasing electricity prices the typical return-on-investment is 5 to 7 years.

According to one of the companies I spoke with, the ROI is even better if you are using solar to power a plugin hybrid electric car. At current gas prices, a 1.5KW solar array along with a PHEV like the Chevy Volt would pay for itself in 2 years.

The only question in my mind is whether to buy a larger array now, or wait until PHEVs are actually available.