In todays's Boston Globe article http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=878-LYQEcPs They talked about what you need to know when buying LED bulbs. Here are best points:
40-watt bulb = 450 lumens
60-watt bulb = 800 lumens
100-watt bulb = 1,600 lumens
For R30 floodlights, look for at least 10 times the watts of the bulb
you are replacing
Look for LED that advertise the color temperature of light you want to match.
2,700 Kelvin (K) Standard incandescent bulbs produce a warm yellowish light
3,000K, is whiter and comparable to halogen
3,500K to 4,100K for a even brighter white
5,000K to 6,500K to mimic natural light or daylight
Monday, February 3, 2014
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Solar Farm in Fall Foliage
The HOOSAC Solar Farm in Florida MA is now done. Here are some aerials taken in October.
Monday, October 29, 2012
Energy Giving Back Houses in Boston
In the Boston Globe today was great story of how MA is working to keep in the for front of building energy positive house
The proposition sounds
far-fetched: Build a home in Boston so efficient that it produces more
energy than it consumes, and price it for less than $400,000.
But on Tuesday, Mayor Thomas M. Menino will kick off a building program designed to do just that, at a groundbreaking for the city’s first so-called energy-positive homes.
While the technological feat itself is significant, perhaps as noteworthy is the fact that public officials and private builders agree such homes can be built using straightforward designs and materials that won’t break the bank.
“It’s really not rocket science,” said Kamran Zahedi, president of Urbanica Inc., the developer building the first wave of homes, on Highland Street in Roxbury. “People are now realizing it’s good business to build in this way.”
Urbanica is one of three companies selected by the city to design and construct 10 energy-positive homes — those that produce more energy than they consume annually — on city-owned land in Roxbury and Jamaica Plain. Eleven teams submitted proposals in a city design competition for the development rights, and city officials said the high level of interest will lead to additional projects in coming years.
“There are a lot of architects and builders that have the
expertise to do this,” said Sheila Dillon, director of Boston’s
Department of Neighborhood Development. “We see this project as
something people can learn from and then begin to build on larger sites
using the same energy practices.”
Construction of efficient homes is beginning to rise across the United States. Although there is no accurate count on the number of energy-positive homes, commercial contractors have started building them around the country. Depending on the market where they are being built, prices range from $180,000 to $400,000.
The Urbanica project achieves its energy-positive goals largely through the use of rooftop solar panels, although the homes have numerous other energy-efficient features. City officials said homeowners should be able to sell excess power to their electric company and use the proceeds to further lower their utility costs.
Each of the four town homes will have 39 solar panels that should produce more electricity than a typical household consumes during a year. The houses will face the sun so they need less electricity for lighting during the day, and will be air-sealed and have double insulation to maintain comfortable temperatures without as much heating or cooling. Other measures include high-efficiency windows, Energy Star-rated appliances, and a smaller heating system that uses less duct work and electricity.
The houses will have three bedrooms, 2½ baths, and about 1,800 square feet.
Specialists in energy-efficient building say that demand for such homes has risen significantly in recent years, especially as home builders try to differentiate themselves by emphasizing environmentally friendly products.
“We’ve got builders trying to focus their entire product line in this direction,” said Drew Smith, president of Two Trails Inc., an energy consulting firm in Sarasota, Fla.
“We’re seeing demand for this in affordable housing and in multimillion-dollar homes,” he continued. “People used to say it was something only the rich could afford, but that’s not the case anymore.”
Smith said his business has grown consistently in recent years, even as Florida’s housing market has struggled to recover from the foreclosure crisis and broader economic downturn. He is now looking to expand to Las Vegas.
In Boston, Dillon said, the three builders designated by the city will price their homes for less than $450,000. In addition to the Urbanica project, GFC Development will build two town houses at 64 Catherine St. in Jamaica Plain, and a team of Sage Builders and Transformations Inc. will build four homes at Highland Park in Roxbury. The latter two projects are expected to start by early next year.
Dillon said the city has not set a specific goal for the number of energy-positive homes it wants to build in coming years, but it is already beginning to explore additional development sites.
“Building in an efficient way and contributing energy back to the grid is one of the mayor’s top priorities,” Dillon said. “And to be able to so in such a way that produces housing for middle-income families is really perfect for us.”
Casey Ross can be reached at cross@globe.com.
Giving back to the electric grid
City embarks on program to build energy-positive housing — homes that produce more electric power than they consume
But on Tuesday, Mayor Thomas M. Menino will kick off a building program designed to do just that, at a groundbreaking for the city’s first so-called energy-positive homes.
While the technological feat itself is significant, perhaps as noteworthy is the fact that public officials and private builders agree such homes can be built using straightforward designs and materials that won’t break the bank.
“It’s really not rocket science,” said Kamran Zahedi, president of Urbanica Inc., the developer building the first wave of homes, on Highland Street in Roxbury. “People are now realizing it’s good business to build in this way.”
Urbanica is one of three companies selected by the city to design and construct 10 energy-positive homes — those that produce more energy than they consume annually — on city-owned land in Roxbury and Jamaica Plain. Eleven teams submitted proposals in a city design competition for the development rights, and city officials said the high level of interest will lead to additional projects in coming years.
‘Building in an efficient way and contributing energy back to the grid is one of the mayor’s top priorities.’
Construction of efficient homes is beginning to rise across the United States. Although there is no accurate count on the number of energy-positive homes, commercial contractors have started building them around the country. Depending on the market where they are being built, prices range from $180,000 to $400,000.
The Urbanica project achieves its energy-positive goals largely through the use of rooftop solar panels, although the homes have numerous other energy-efficient features. City officials said homeowners should be able to sell excess power to their electric company and use the proceeds to further lower their utility costs.
Each of the four town homes will have 39 solar panels that should produce more electricity than a typical household consumes during a year. The houses will face the sun so they need less electricity for lighting during the day, and will be air-sealed and have double insulation to maintain comfortable temperatures without as much heating or cooling. Other measures include high-efficiency windows, Energy Star-rated appliances, and a smaller heating system that uses less duct work and electricity.
The houses will have three bedrooms, 2½ baths, and about 1,800 square feet.
Specialists in energy-efficient building say that demand for such homes has risen significantly in recent years, especially as home builders try to differentiate themselves by emphasizing environmentally friendly products.
“We’ve got builders trying to focus their entire product line in this direction,” said Drew Smith, president of Two Trails Inc., an energy consulting firm in Sarasota, Fla.
“We’re seeing demand for this in affordable housing and in multimillion-dollar homes,” he continued. “People used to say it was something only the rich could afford, but that’s not the case anymore.”
Smith said his business has grown consistently in recent years, even as Florida’s housing market has struggled to recover from the foreclosure crisis and broader economic downturn. He is now looking to expand to Las Vegas.
In Boston, Dillon said, the three builders designated by the city will price their homes for less than $450,000. In addition to the Urbanica project, GFC Development will build two town houses at 64 Catherine St. in Jamaica Plain, and a team of Sage Builders and Transformations Inc. will build four homes at Highland Park in Roxbury. The latter two projects are expected to start by early next year.
Dillon said the city has not set a specific goal for the number of energy-positive homes it wants to build in coming years, but it is already beginning to explore additional development sites.
“Building in an efficient way and contributing energy back to the grid is one of the mayor’s top priorities,” Dillon said. “And to be able to so in such a way that produces housing for middle-income families is really perfect for us.”
Casey Ross can be reached at cross@globe.com.
Saturday, October 6, 2012
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Monday, July 9, 2012
On Land Wind Farms Growing. articular by the Boston Globe
First Wind, a Boston-based wind power developer, has installed enough turbines in the Northeast to generate an amount of electricity comparable to Cape Wind's 468 megawatts. Here's a look at First Wind's projects.
Despite controversy that has slowed the Cape Wind project in Nantucket Sound, land-based wind farms are expanding rapidly in the region.
One company alone, First Wind Holdings LLC of Boston, has installed enough turbines in the Northeast over the past few years to generate nearly as much power as the long-awaited offshore wind farm. Other companies, too, have developed wind projects in New England states.
Driving this growth are technological advances reducing the cost of wind turbines and increasing their efficiency, making wind power more competitive with traditional power sources — particularly in the Northeast, where electricity costs can run as much as 60 percent above the national average.
Turbine prices have dropped about 30 percent over the past few years, and new turbines are able to generate electricity at lower wind speeds.
Meanwhile, average electricity prices in the Northeast can top 15
cents per kilowatt hour, compared to a US average of 9.52 cents. New
wind technology can generate power at an average cost of about 10 cents
per kilowatt hour, excluding subsidies, according to the US Energy
Department.
“Some of the states in the Northeast have been some of the fastest-growing markets,” said Elizabeth Salerno, director of industry data and analysis at the American Wind Energy Association, a trade group in Washington. “Power prices are relatively high [there], so by delivering wind projects, you can develop a pretty affordable source of generation.”
First Wind has built wind farms in eight locations in Maine, Vermont, and upstate New York. With the 34 megawatts that will be added when the company completes its wind farm near Eastbrook, Maine, First Wind’s projects will have the capacity to generate nearly 420 megawatts of electricity, compared to Cape Wind’s 468 megawatts.
In addition, Quincy-based Patriot Renewable operates two wind farms in Maine and one in Buzzards Bay, with a total generating capacity of about 25 megawatts. The Berkshire Wind Power Cooperative Corp., a consortium of 14 municipal utilities and the Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Co., owns a 15-megawatt wind farm in Hancock that went online last year.
A megawatt of wind-generated electricity can power about 300 homes.
Despite the growth of land-based projects, the discussion about developing the region’s wind resources has often focused on offshore projects such as Cape Wind and a proposed “wind energy area” that would encompass nearly 165,000 acres of federal waters off the coasts of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Last week, US officials completed an environmental review of the wind energy area, an important step in opening the area to development.
Still, it could be years before any turbines are built offshore, meaning that more land-based projects will be needed to achieve renewable energy goals set by several states seeking alternatives to fossil fuels, such as oil, coal, and natural gas. In Massachusetts, for example, the state has set a goal of installing 2,000 megawatts of wind-energy capacity in the state by 2020 and has required utilities to get 15 percent of their power from wind, solar, and other renewable sources in that same time frame.
Today, there are 61 megawatts of installed wind power capacity in the state.
This has created opportunities for companies like First Wind. Founded a decade ago, the company had its first project up and running in Hawaii in 2006, and its second operating in Maine in 2007.
Today, First Wind has 16 projects — totaling 980 megawatts of generating capacity — operating or under construction in the United States. Four went online in 2011, and another followed this year.
The latest project in the region, Bull Hill wind farm near Eastbrook, Maine, will produce power for NStar, one of the largest utilities in Massachusetts. The company’s other New England customers include ISO New England, the region’s grid operator, and Harvard University.
“Massachusetts is way ahead of everybody [with its clean energy goals] so, from a practical point of view, the demand is being created by Massachusetts,” said First Wind chief executive Paul Gaynor. That’s because wind power generated in other states is being bought by Massachusetts utilities and others to help meet the state’s renewable energy goals.
Although offshore wind is stronger and therefore an abundant and steady source of power, it has proved much harder to site projects in the ocean for a variety of environmental and technical reasons, including how to connect offshore turbines to the onshore power grid.
That’s not to to say land-based wind projects have not faced opposition — Gaynor said all of his company’s projects have — but it generally has not been as vehement and vociferous as in the Cape Wind controversy. That’s partly because First Wind’s projects tend to be in remote areas visible to few people. They also bring jobs to rural areas that desperately need them.
Take Washington County, Maine, one of the poorest areas in New England. First Wind built two projects totalling more than 80 megawatts in the county, creating about 200 construction jobs that lasted several months and pumping much-needed money into the local economy during the recent recession.
“The [businesses] that were really struggling, whether it was a woodcutter’s or a convenience store — they were all pretty much bolstered by this,” said Harold Clossey, executive director of the Sunrise Economic Council in Washington County.
Jack Parker, president of Reed & Reed Inc., a Woolwich, Maine, construction company, said its revenues have doubled since it started building wind farms for First Wind. The company has constructed four First Wind projects in Maine, as well as the Berkshire Wind Power Cooperative project in Western Massachusetts and other wind farms in New Hampshire and Vermont.
“It’s transformed our company,” Parker said. “Wind accounts for more than half our business.” Reed & Reed also builds bridges, parking garages, and marine facilities.
Wind power is helping the Massachusetts economy, said Richard K. Sullivan Jr., the state’s secretary of of energy and environmental affairs. About 600 wind power companies operate in Massachusetts, employing roughly 6,500 people, according to state data.
Sullivan said Massachusetts’ energy policies were crafted to be “agnostic to offshore [or] onshore” wind farms, in the hope of encouraging both types.
“It certainly brings environmental benefits,” Sullivan said. “But make no mistake, it’s also an economic development strategy.”
Erin Ailworth
First Wind, a Boston-based wind power developer, has installed enough turbines in the Northeast to generate an amount of electricity comparable to Cape Wind's 468 megawatts. Here's a look at First Wind's projects.
Bubbles are sized according to the wind farm's capacity (in megawatts).
Despite controversy that has slowed the Cape Wind project in Nantucket Sound, land-based wind farms are expanding rapidly in the region.
One company alone, First Wind Holdings LLC of Boston, has installed enough turbines in the Northeast over the past few years to generate nearly as much power as the long-awaited offshore wind farm. Other companies, too, have developed wind projects in New England states.
Driving this growth are technological advances reducing the cost of wind turbines and increasing their efficiency, making wind power more competitive with traditional power sources — particularly in the Northeast, where electricity costs can run as much as 60 percent above the national average.
Turbine prices have dropped about 30 percent over the past few years, and new turbines are able to generate electricity at lower wind speeds.
“Some of the states in the Northeast have been some of the fastest-growing markets,” said Elizabeth Salerno, director of industry data and analysis at the American Wind Energy Association, a trade group in Washington. “Power prices are relatively high [there], so by delivering wind projects, you can develop a pretty affordable source of generation.”
First Wind has built wind farms in eight locations in Maine, Vermont, and upstate New York. With the 34 megawatts that will be added when the company completes its wind farm near Eastbrook, Maine, First Wind’s projects will have the capacity to generate nearly 420 megawatts of electricity, compared to Cape Wind’s 468 megawatts.
In addition, Quincy-based Patriot Renewable operates two wind farms in Maine and one in Buzzards Bay, with a total generating capacity of about 25 megawatts. The Berkshire Wind Power Cooperative Corp., a consortium of 14 municipal utilities and the Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Co., owns a 15-megawatt wind farm in Hancock that went online last year.
A megawatt of wind-generated electricity can power about 300 homes.
Despite the growth of land-based projects, the discussion about developing the region’s wind resources has often focused on offshore projects such as Cape Wind and a proposed “wind energy area” that would encompass nearly 165,000 acres of federal waters off the coasts of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Last week, US officials completed an environmental review of the wind energy area, an important step in opening the area to development.
Still, it could be years before any turbines are built offshore, meaning that more land-based projects will be needed to achieve renewable energy goals set by several states seeking alternatives to fossil fuels, such as oil, coal, and natural gas. In Massachusetts, for example, the state has set a goal of installing 2,000 megawatts of wind-energy capacity in the state by 2020 and has required utilities to get 15 percent of their power from wind, solar, and other renewable sources in that same time frame.
Today, there are 61 megawatts of installed wind power capacity in the state.
This has created opportunities for companies like First Wind. Founded a decade ago, the company had its first project up and running in Hawaii in 2006, and its second operating in Maine in 2007.
Today, First Wind has 16 projects — totaling 980 megawatts of generating capacity — operating or under construction in the United States. Four went online in 2011, and another followed this year.
The latest project in the region, Bull Hill wind farm near Eastbrook, Maine, will produce power for NStar, one of the largest utilities in Massachusetts. The company’s other New England customers include ISO New England, the region’s grid operator, and Harvard University.
“Massachusetts is way ahead of everybody [with its clean energy goals] so, from a practical point of view, the demand is being created by Massachusetts,” said First Wind chief executive Paul Gaynor. That’s because wind power generated in other states is being bought by Massachusetts utilities and others to help meet the state’s renewable energy goals.
Although offshore wind is stronger and therefore an abundant and steady source of power, it has proved much harder to site projects in the ocean for a variety of environmental and technical reasons, including how to connect offshore turbines to the onshore power grid.
That’s not to to say land-based wind projects have not faced opposition — Gaynor said all of his company’s projects have — but it generally has not been as vehement and vociferous as in the Cape Wind controversy. That’s partly because First Wind’s projects tend to be in remote areas visible to few people. They also bring jobs to rural areas that desperately need them.
Take Washington County, Maine, one of the poorest areas in New England. First Wind built two projects totalling more than 80 megawatts in the county, creating about 200 construction jobs that lasted several months and pumping much-needed money into the local economy during the recent recession.
“The [businesses] that were really struggling, whether it was a woodcutter’s or a convenience store — they were all pretty much bolstered by this,” said Harold Clossey, executive director of the Sunrise Economic Council in Washington County.
Jack Parker, president of Reed & Reed Inc., a Woolwich, Maine, construction company, said its revenues have doubled since it started building wind farms for First Wind. The company has constructed four First Wind projects in Maine, as well as the Berkshire Wind Power Cooperative project in Western Massachusetts and other wind farms in New Hampshire and Vermont.
“It’s transformed our company,” Parker said. “Wind accounts for more than half our business.” Reed & Reed also builds bridges, parking garages, and marine facilities.
Wind power is helping the Massachusetts economy, said Richard K. Sullivan Jr., the state’s secretary of of energy and environmental affairs. About 600 wind power companies operate in Massachusetts, employing roughly 6,500 people, according to state data.
Sullivan said Massachusetts’ energy policies were crafted to be “agnostic to offshore [or] onshore” wind farms, in the hope of encouraging both types.
“It certainly brings environmental benefits,” Sullivan said. “But make no mistake, it’s also an economic development strategy.”
Erin Ailworth
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Acting Locally.....Solar on our VT House.
We are in the middle of switching from oil to Solar Hot Water with a gas back up.
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