Civic Solar Advisor Free Weekly Newsletter

Our own Beau Gillis recommends this free weekly newsletter available from Civic Solar.

He says "Here is stuff on Solar panel load etc., looked like good stuff to pass on."

Another free newsletter about the international Solar Industry in general is from SolarBuzz.

Check these out and let others know what you find by adding comments below, or start a new post. A list of interesting Solar PV websites, blogs and News sources would be very helpful to everyone.

Feb. 2012 HRSG Meeting, Kaufman Hall, ODU

The February meeting of the Hampton Roads Solar Group will be Tuesday, February 21 at 7:30 PM at ODU (note location change).  We’ll be meeting at Kaufman Hall (the hydraulics lab), Rm 138 on the ODU campus.   John Whitelaw will meet us there to let everyone in.  You can locate it on a campus map by going to: http://www.odu.edu/oduhome/campusmap.shtml and selecting “Kaufman Hall” under the list of buildings below the large map.  I’ll get more details as well as parking recommendations from John.

We’ll have two speakers for this meeting:

Hannah Weigard of Chesapeake Climate Action Network (http://www.chesapeakeclimate.org/about/about-us/staff/hannah-wiegard-hampton-roads-organizer).  CCAN has been active in Virginia offshore wind power, an important renewable energy source;

and

Our own Jim Jacobs

Please pass on the word to others who may be interested; there’s no admission fee and lots of good discussion to be had.

March’s meeting will be March 20 (the Vernal equinox this year) in Hampton at the Ruppert-Sargent Building (our usual Peninsula location).

-          Ken

Skelion: A solar energy design plugin for Google SketchUp

Tuesday, December 13, 2011 4:00 PM

Skelion was designed to make working in SketchUp quite a bit easier for solar professionals. It features the ability to automatically insert solar panels on SketchUp surfaces. Because the developers are solar professionals themselves, I have a feeling others in the industry will find this plugin quite useful. I had a chance to ask one of Skelion’s developers some questions:

Please tell us a little bit about yourself.

Well, I am Sam Jankis, industrial engineer and co-developer of Skelion, although my partner is the real code developer of the plugin: Juan Pons is a Spanish engineer and programmer. Skelion was born in July 2011 after two years of development. It is a plugin for Google SketchUp that allows you to, among other things, insert solar panels on surfaces automatically.

Why did you build Skelion?

Skelion was developed to automate the design of solar systems using Google SketchUp. The goal was to do all the design work we were doing, but automatically. Now we can do with four clicks what we were doing in four hours. Skelion reduced considerably our average time expended on doing layouts and energy production reports of solar systems, and allowed us to multiply by four the preliminary studies we could do.

Read rest of interview and watch video here

Dominion looks to build 2GW Wind Power off Virginia Coast

By James Quilter, Windpower Monthly, 03 February 2012, 9:25am 

UNITED STATES: Virginia's largest utility Dominion Virginia Power has revealed it is interested in building 2GW of offshore wind off the state's coast.

Dominion, which moved into onshore wind in 2009, said it had the transmission infrastructure to handle the electricity generated by an offshore wind farm. It said it was looking to develop 500-2,000MW in phases starting at 100 turbines and eventually moving up to 400.

Speaking to the Associated Press, Dominion senior vice president Mary Doswell said: "If everything aligns and it makes good sense and we have our regulators on board, yes, we would be moving forward on a wind farm."

However, Doswell also said costs would have to move closer to Dominion's $0.12/kWh rates. "Wind is a great resource but we've got to work on this cost equation."

Although the majority of its portfolio consists of nuclear and coal, the utility moved into onshore wind in 2008. It built the 264MW NedPower Mount Storm Wind Project in partnership with Shell and has a 50% interest in 650MW of BP Alternative Energy's two-phase, 750MW Fowler Ridge Wind Farm in Indiana.

Dominion has been looking at offshore wind since last year. In March 2011, it launched a study examining a transmission line that would connect any offshore projects.

Scot C Hathaway, vice president of transmission said: "An undersea transmission line project will be a key to getting wind generation from the Atlantic Ocean to our customers.

"Virginia has excellent resources for offshore wind energy. It makes sense for us to begin a preliminary scoping study of a transmission line and how it could make the offshore wind industry in Virginia viable, without regard to issues of rates, timing and integration into the PJM Interconnection regional transmission grid."

The first US offshore wind turbine is likely to be built in Virginia. Gamesa and shipbuilder Northrop Grumman have decided to base their G11X 5MW turbine development program. 

Read original article here.

Study updating Net Metering cost benefit analysis

I came across the following study today:

http://votesolar.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Re-evaluating-the-Cost-effectiveness-of-Net-Energy-Metering-in-California-1-9-2012.pdf

The short form, it appears to be saying Net Metering saves the electrical consumer/power company more then it costs the consumer/power company when you have a single tier rate (like Dominion's). However, it is in researcher speak and not sure I understood it correctly. 

If I am correct then this is some of the evidence we are looking for that "standby" fees are unjust to solar PV owners.

The study link was buried in an article on "grid use fee" which I suspect Dominion will try out after "stand-by" fee to attempt to kill residential solar. The "grid use fee" got killed, but only because California voters have slightly more political power then the power company's do; unlike Virginia, where Dominion owns the legislature from the looks of it.

Jacobs' Passive Solar House Insulated Roll Shutters

Here's an early morning shot of the new insulated roll shutters which A&A Awnings just installed. The slats are about 1/2" thick, foam filled, powder coated aluminum.  It's motorized and the control is wireless so it can operate it from anywhere within about 200 ft. Individual shutters can be up, down, or anywhere in between for shade control.  In this installation, there are 8 separate units which can be controlled independently, though a unit could have been designed to cover any number of windows since the system is custom designed and built.

When down, they seal tightly and have allowed the internal heater usage at night to be cut by 1/3. It's like something out of Star-Trek when they all go up or down at the same time. 

Serendipitously, they fit right into the passive solar house as if it were designed with them in mind, which, of course, it wasn't since the house was built in 1980.  

Because they're foam filled, they're not as structurally strong as hurricane shutters, but will give some protection up to category 1 storms, though that's not their primary function.  

Although expensive (the whole system was about $12,000 installed), Jim & Genny Jacobs can highly recommend them should someone want rolling, insulated shutters like these.  Warranty is 5 years on parts, 1 year on labor.

Surry/ODEC Zoning Hearing Date Set for Feb 27

Dear friends,

With the help and dedication of many people, we have been able to combine our collective efforts to push back the Old Dominion Cooperative's stated date of completion for their proposed coal-fired power plant from 2016 to 2021. I believe we are winning, but ODEC hasn't backed down and is still working to build what would be the largest coal plant in Virginia. We all know that this is a bad deal for both the economy and the health of Hampton Roads, and we can't let up on the pressure.

I want to make sure everyone knows that a critical opportunity to show our opposition to the coal plant is coming up on February 27th at 7:00 PM in Surry County (exact location TBD).

The Surry County Planning and Zoning Commission is being forced to reconsider zoning approval of the coal plant after a judge ruled that ODEC had rammed zoning approval through without proper notice in 2010. The planning and Zoning Commission will hold a hearing and a vote whether to recommend that the town of Dendron also approve local zoning for the coal plant. This is a great opportunity for you to speak up. Bring signs, bring your neighbors, bring friends. I've also created a Facebook event that you can access here and use to help spread the word. If you have access to a list serve or help run an advocacy organization please alert your membership. I'm happy to help anyone get the word out.

Background:
Many of you were there when in 2010 the Surry County Planning and Zoning Commission held a hearing and voted to recommend that the town of Dendron approve zoning for the plant. Many of you were there when Dendron held a Town Council Meeting for which no vote was advertised yet they voted anyway - even though three town council members abstained for a lack of advertisement. Those three town council members also abstained because the Mayor of Dendron wouldn't allow the coal plant proposal specifics to discussed, they abstained because ODEC refused to discuss whose properties the rail spur would cross, whose properties the massive pipeline to the James would cross. They abstained because ODEC claimed that trees could hide view of the 650 foot smokestacks and that the smokestacks only emitted water vapor. In the eyes of many ODEC's credibility was nonexistent. How could they let them build and operate a major source of pollution, that is known to cut years off of lives, cause asthma attacks, COPD, strokes, poison rivers, poison lakes, poison the Chesapeake Bay, and dump millions of tons of toxic ash all over town

It was repeatedly stated by council members at the Town Council Meeting that the vote wouldn't be legal, but ODEC's attorneys reassured the pro-coal plant town council members that it would be fine, that no one would sue. These are Virginia's premiere land use attorneys after all, surely they know how to write a public notice. Still, the remaining town council members and the mayor had the votes, and audacity, to grant local zoning approval that night in February of 2010. Shortly afterward, feeling the sting of injustice a local blueberry farmer and lawyer joined other locals to sue ODEC for not advertising the critical vote. It was a simple cut and dry case and ODEC could have admitted their mistake and just held the votes again. Instead they tried to have the case dismissed and they tried to scare the plaintiffs from Surry County by asking the court to make them liable for potentially millions in court costs. ODEC tried to damage the character of the lawyer saying that he was continually trying to delay the case when it was ODEC trying to get the case dismissed and flooding the court with tons of irrelevant documents.

In the end the judge ruled in favor of the Surry County residents and their farmer/attorney. The Planning and Zoning Commission and the town of Dendron must each hold their hearings and votes again, this time properly advertised. ODEC isn't wasting time. As I mentioned above, the first hearing and vote will be February 27th and the second has yet to be announced though it could possibly be in early March.

The increasingly small pro-coal plant group in Surry County has more than their share of power in the county and have worked to bolster pro-coal sentiments in the Planning Commission and the town of Dendron. Those three courageous Town Council members, for example, have been voted out and replaced with pro-coal members. So we don't expect either body to vote against local zoning.

I hope you will join me, and the dedicated people of Surry County, as we make a point to ODEC, the media, Surry and Dendron Politicians, and downwind communities who would suffer for decades to come, that this coal plant proposal is unacceptable.

Though we may lose the local zoning vote, let's treat this as our rally against the plant. Let us show our support for the citizens who haven't stopped fighting for a single day and took a great personal risk in filing the suit. Let's show ODEC that as long as they continue to try to push this dirty deal through the permitting process, we will be there to oppose it.

I hope you can make it.

(original email sent by Mike McCoy, Virginia Campaign Coordinator

Appalachian Voices)