Siding!

It took a long time to get to this point, but at last the siding on the addition is completed!

It looks good doesn't it? :)

Jose Lopez & his crew did a great job.

Solar Energy Questions & Answers

The ten photovoltaic panels are on the right, the four solar thermal panels (for domestic hot water) are on the left.

How much power do the PV panels generate? Each of the 10 PV panels has a rated output of 195 Watts. The highest instantaneous peak output that I've seen so far is around 1800 Watts. The estimated annual production is 2200 KWH, or about 1/3 of our average annual usage.  
Jan 2010 update: Our 2009 actual PV total was 2251 KWH.

Does the power company buy power from you? If so, is it at the going rate that other suppliers provide? They buy power from us at the retail kWh rate. So if we pay $0.16/kwh, that's what we get per kWh generated, because that's what we save. We also get an additional subsidy for the kWh we produce paid by people who have signed up to pay extra for clean energy. That's and additional $0.04 cents per kWh.

What did you need to do to connect the output of the panels to the grid? National Grid installed a new meter at no charge. Only the meter module was swapped.

Does your meter track when you supply power? Does the rate your are paid vary with time of day, peak times (assuming they pay you). The PV system only measures the total power produced by the panels. I keep track of the total manually. National Grid rates are flat, so there are no special rates for peak usage periods.

Do you store excess power in batteries? No, the excess power flows back onto the grid. We have "net metering", where we pay for our net usage. Excess power generated on one day reduces our total kWh usage for the month.

For the solar thermal panels, do you use the hot water to heat the house, in addition to providing hot water? We originally planned for another heat exchanger to get heat for the house from the solar panels, but we decided to save money and not install it right now. That would have added around $2000 for the additional plumbing costs (I'm not sure why it was so expensive, but that's what the heating subcontractor quoted) and we decided it wasn't worth it. We may add it later, if we can get it done for less. In the winter, the solar panels won't produce all of our hot water, so it's not as clear a benefit to use the excess to heat the house also.

What are the payback periods?

• The payback on the solar hot water system is around 7 years. This payback period is based on a 5% average annual increase in energy costs.
• The PV system will generate about 1/3 of the 6500 kW-hours we consume each year. The payback time on this system is around 18 years, when annual energy cost increases are factored in. The PV panels themselves are guaranteed for 25 years. Beyond 25 years, the power generated may be slightly less, but they should continue to work.

For the PV panels, I'm not thinking strictly in terms of payback. The way I look at it, I know we'll need electricity, and after the payback period I'll be even and the atmosphere will have less carbon dioxide than if I didn't do this.

Electricity to use and a planet that we can all live on, what else can you ask for?

Both of our solar power systems are live!

Both of our new solar power systems are online & producing power! 

Here are some pictures of the panels and the sensors showing how much is being produced. They were both activated this month. The 4 solar thermal panels by Shuco (a German company) are on the left. The 10 photovoltaic panels are on the right. The PV panels are made by Evergreen of Marlboro, MA. Solectria of North Andover makes the inverter and electronics.

At 10:30AM this morning, the 2kW PV system was producing more than 1400W (see picture of Solectria meter). I checked the regular electric meter and it showed us delivering power back onto the grid! At times like this, we are delivering power for use by everyone.

At 10:30AM today, it was a 16 degree winter morning, but the solar thermal panels were at 131 degrees. When the panels are above 120 degrees, the pump comes on to circulate glycol to the panels to produce our hot water.

The hot water tank is 150 gallons, with a bottom heating loop fed by the solar thermal panels. This loop heats the entire tank. The top heating loop is fed by the high efficiency gas boiler (made by the German company Buderus). 

If there is enough sun, the solar thermal panels will heat the water tank up to 140 degrees, and a mixing valve delivers 120 degree water for use. 

If the water temperature falls below 120 degrees because we have cloudy days or need more hot water water than the panels produce, the gas boiler comes on to keep the hot water tank at 120 degrees. Hot water temperature stratification means that the gas boiler only heats the top half of the tank. 


Both systems were installed by Nexamp, based right here in North Andover. These guys were great. I recommend them highly.

All quite amazing.

Here's the way it looks with the siding completed. Much better look!

my new plates!

35' Pin Oak Moved - Successfully!

When we started work on our addition, we knew that it was going to be closer than we liked to a 35' pin oak in our backyard. The 29x22' addition ended up only about 8' from the base of the tree. We weren't sure what we were going to do, but once we knew we were getting solar panels, we knew eventually we'd have to do something. That meant either moving it or cutting it down. We weren't sure it was possible to move a tree this large, but we found someone who could do it. The company is Michael Greeno Tree Spade Services, based out of Concord MA. We hired him to move the tree to the lower part of the yard. The work was done last Thursday 10/9. Here are the pictures before, during and after.
PS In the first picture, if you look on the roof to the right of the tree, you can see the photovoltaic solar panels.

Morning in Normandy

Hi Debbie, Jillian, Nicholas,

Here's a short video showing the view from my room this morning. The white roof you see is the tent of the outdoor restaurant area in front of the hotel. It's a typical fall day in Normandy, a little gray and rainy. I guess the weather here (since it's fairly close to the ocean) is often like this in the fall.

I can hear the sound of church bells from the old cathedral now, coming through the open window. A nice sound.

Time to head to work.

See you, Love,
Mark

PS I posted the video after supper. We had another good day at work today, and finished up our visit here. We leave tomorrow for the Schneider office in Bourgebus, France, for a 1 day visit with another project team there. After work tomorrow, we head to Paris to the hotel "Le Meridien".

Here are the directions from Pacy to Bourgebus:
http://maps.google.com/maps?daddr=Bourgu%C3%A9bus,+France&geocode=&dirflg=&saddr=pacy,+france&f=d&sll=49.121298,-0.295601&sspn=0.14133,0.411644&ie=UTF8&z=9
Zoom out and you can see where we are in France, and in relation to England. It's not far from the English Channel (or as they call it in France "La Manche", which means "the sleeve").

My 3rd day in Pacy

Hi Debbie, Jillian, Nicholas -

I had some time before dinner tonight, so I went for a walk, and crossed over the bridge near the hotel. This was the first time I walked across the bridge toward that part of Pacy. Here's a picture that shows the best view of the hotel.

Here's a picture of the Schneider office in Pacy. This office is a joint venture of Schneider and Toshiba (from Japan), and that's why it has both names.

There are a lot of interesting old houses. Here is one I saw on my walk today. What's especially neat is that the turret on the right ends rather abruptly. There is a driveway next door, and the turret ends like it was cut in half!


We had a regular dinner today - pizza! I had a salad Nicoise to start with, which is good since I've been eating too much rich food on the trip so far!

Hope you're all well,
Love,
Mark

My business trip to Pacy, France

Hi Debbie, Jillian and Nicholas,

Here are the picture from the trip so far in Pacy, France. A different picture of the front lawn of the hotel, and also of the Eure river. You can see Ron Naismith, Bruce Dunbar and Bill LeRette (from left to right).
The hotel L'Etape is at a beautiful spot. It was built in 1769 as someone's home. There are also pictures from the afternoon on the first day we arrived. We took a walk to a park that's just a block from main street, with views of the river and the gardens. Nice, huh?

We stopped to get a sandwich and a pastry at a boulangerie (bakery). I got a small ham and butter sub sandwich, an apricot tart (very tasty) and a blackberry soda. I thought the tart looked a little like a pineapple, but it was apricots. The shops in France all do a great job with their displays. Here's a picture of the bakery window and display case inside. Both look good, don't they?

How Do Scientists Know They're Not Wrong About Global Warming? (from LiveScience.com)

I thought this was a good summary of the reasoning behind the scientific consensus on Global Warming. The article was published on livescience.com in July 2007:

http://www.livescience.com/environment/070716_gw_notwrong.html

Re: Br-r-r! Where did the global warming go? (in response to Boston Globe OpEd piece)
Sunday, January 6, 2008 3:02:01 PM

There was an OpEd piece in the Boston Globe today by Jeff Jacoby. Basically, he made the case that because there is snow and cold weather in unusual amounts and in unusual places, then global warming is not happening. Well, I had to reply. :) Here is the link to the editorial, and my letter in response.

--Mark

Br-r-r! Where did the global warming go?
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/01/06/br_r_r_where_did_global_warming_go/

6 January 2008

Dear Jeff,

Just because last year was not the warmest on record does not mean that global climate change has stopped happening. Just because Massachusetts had a lot of snow in the month of December doesn't mean a new ice age has arrived! I use the term climate change - and not global warming - because not every place is going to get warmer. The overall effect will be warmer, but many places will be colder. Some places will be wetter, some will be drier. The operative word is change. That change is real and has been measured in every climate zone all over the world.

To come up with a list of places that had unusually cold weather does not mean that it's getting colder. If anything, it may add to the evidence that significant climate change is happening. I bet one can point to a number of places that had unusually warm weather this winter. I know that my hometown of Erie, Pennsylvania - known for its annual snowfalls in the snowbelt near the Great Lakes - is having an unusually low snowfall year. When I was there for Christmas this year, there was NO snow on the ground. People commented about how unusual it was, and that they've been seeing this for the last several years.

There are scientific questions about the relative effect of CO2 levels versus solar output. However the scientific consensus today says that it's not the sun that's causing the changes, but human activity.

There is a genuine question where we should allocate funds to reduce human suffering in the word. But if we don't make a concerted effort over the next 50 years to reduce carbon emissions, the scientific consensus is unequivocal: we will risk severe climate changes that will cause great hardship to millions and possibly billions of people all over the world. If changing weather patterns reduce global farm production by even 20% year-on-year, what will happen to the millions of people in the world who are already living in the margins?

Without addressing long-term carbon dioxide output over the next 50 years, it won't matter if we have spent money on education or healthcare or economic development in our efforts to help the poor around the world. All of those efforts will be swept away. The costs to address this today are very small compared to the potential harm and costs that we are facing.

It's funny that you question whether global warming is happening, but then say it's easier to adapt than try to prevent it. Is it happening or not? Yes, we will need to adapt, but if we don't address the cause of this problem as the first priority, adaptation will not be enough.

We may look outside our doors in Massachusetts and see an unusually snowy winter, but that doesn't mean the climate problem has gone away.

Mark Bohrer