The Cleveland Museum of Natural History has a remarkable new exhibit.   Coined the future of green building technology, the museum has sponsored a “smart home” that has been designed to meet Passive House standards and will seek Passive House certification when placed in it’s permanent location.

The museum had over a hundred partners participate in the design, build, financing and furnishing of the home and garden that is now open to the public to tour on the museum campus.  As typical to Passive House specifications it is extremely air tight, super insulated, contains no thermal bridges, and does not need a conventional furnace.  The home instead is heated and cooled with a small ductless air source heat pump.

Though the home was not seeking well known LEED certification, it was designed with LEED  criteria in mind and has many features that address the overall environmental impact of the building, besides energy usage.  It is also seeking “Green Communities” certification which was developed by Enterprise Community Partners, a national funder of neighborhood redevelopment.

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Alexander (Zandy) Sievers, SBS Project Technician
RESNET Home Energy Rater
NorthWest Energy Star Homes Verifier
NAHB Green Building Verifier
T/(406)396-2661, zsievers@sbslink.com

While there certainly has been a lot of talk lately about the weather, and whether global warming is real or not, the concept of climate change is certainly on our minds (or should be).  It seems that catastrophic weather events are more prevalent than ever: from tornadoes to floods to tsunamis, earthquakes, mudslides and volcanic eruptions.

In response to these major weather events, and in an effort to gain some knowledge, I have been doing some summer reading.

First on the list is a behemoth of a book – and worth the hundreds of pages – Hot, Flat and Crowded by Thomas Friedman. Simply put: We are getting hotter as a globe from fossil fuel energy dependence.  We are getting flatter as a world through wireless technology.  We are getting more crowded as a world through population growth. This book points out, more than ever, the mounting global energy crisis with the advent of a larger-than-life working-class in major cities around the world,  namely China and India.  It also details some very viable ways we could remedy the current situation and prevent total global melt-down – like applying the idea of a smart grid to our utility use and billing, efficiency and renewable now (not later), government mandates and crackdown for laziness in getting on board, and even suggesting that the USA needs to getting into a race w/ China to “out green” one another – akin to the space race with former USSR that put a man on the moon in short order.

Another great read, and a bit shorter, is an  article in Rolling Stones:  “Al Gore: Climate of Denial: Can science and the truth withstand the merchants of poison?“  This article addresses the question of whether we are all in denial about climate change or not.  Former Vice-President Al Gore emphatically says “Yes, we are in denial.”  The final paragraph states:

The climate crisis, in reality, is a struggle for the soul of America. It is about whether or not we are still capable — given the ill health of our democracy and the current dominance of wealth over reason — of perceiving important and complex realities clearly enough to promote and protect the sustainable well-being of the many. What hangs in the balance is the future of civilization as we know it.

And finally, the shortest of all the reads, an article from Newsweek: “It’s still the Economy, Stupid. 14 Ways to put America back to Work” by 42nd President Bill Clinton. In June 2011 in Chicago, the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) focused on America for the first time, inviting business and political leaders to make specific commitments in support of the former president’s jobs blueprint, which he details in this article. Here Clinton outlines his plans for economic stimulation.  Interestingly enough, the first half circled around energy efficiency and the funding there of.  Namely, #2 Cash for Startups, #3 Jobs Galore in Energy, #4 Copy the Empire State Building, #5 Get the Utilities in on the Action, #6 State-by-State Solutions, and #8 Paint ‘Em White.  And, really, all fourteen talk about energy conservation relating to economic stimulus in one way or another.

So sit back, try to relax and enjoy the reading.  (Then change out all your light bulbs to CFLs and LEDs, install a solar array and fix that leaky faucet.)

After a PV module industry wide cost reduction, sourcing a lower cost mount system and dealers giving better pricing on all balance of system components, SBS has new numbers for potential Solar PV customers in MT that represent up to a 25% reduction in installed costs for PV systems!

If you couple the new lower prices with a $6000 Northwestern Energy PV grant, the 30% Federal Tax credit for renewable energy and the $500/$1000 (single/couple) State Tax credit, the costs are lower than every before.

And here in Montana, we can add to that a 10-year, 4% financing option (oac) from the MT DEQ revolving loan fund for renewable energy.

For a 2kw, 9 module system, total cost to the customer is in the $12,000.00 range.

After incentives this is roughly 3,200.00 out of pocket.

This on average powers about 25-40% of the average Montana home.

Here is an example of plausible breakdown for that $12,000 system

$12,000 GROSS
- $1000 (deposit to SBS to begin work)
=$11,000 NET
-$6,000 (NWenergy PV grant)
=$5,000 – Financed w/ MT DEQ loan
120-months
4%
=$51/month

Yes, that is correct, for at little at $51/month for a 10-year period, you can cover up to 40% of your energy bill. Awesome.  Check out this PV for more information: SolarPVFinancing-Basics-final.

And, when you file your taxes at the end of the year on that system, you’ll still get the $1800 Federal credit and the $500/$1000 state credit back.  You can keep these to use however you’d like, or put that money into your DEQ loan for early pay off (there is not penalty for early pay).

For a free solar site assessment, or to learn more, contact us at SBS today: info@sbslink.com, www.sbslink.com, 406-541-8410.

To get a general estimate of your solar or other renewable energy needs, try our Solar Calculator here.

The Moore’s of Hamilton, Montana completed installation this Fall 2010 of a 10 module photovoltaic system which will provide 40% of the electrical power used in their home.  The pole mount solar array is mounted on a tracking system which follows the sun from East to West through the day.  The electricity is run into their home where it powers any electrical appliances that are currently in use.

If more power is available from the array than can be used by the home, this excess power will then turn the electrical meter backwards creating a financial credit with the utility.  This credit can then be used at night or this winter when the power draw of the home exceeds the solar power production.  So you can see that a system can easily be designed to provide any portion of you power bill that a homeowner determines.

This PV system(short for photovoltaic’s) is one of several in downtown Hamilton that Dan Brandborg , a native Bitterrooter has been involved with since he started working with PV in the early 80’s.  He has worked with Sustainable Building Systems out of Missoula, since 2009.

Now this is something I am excited about. My mom sent me the link to this video over the weekend and she is right on. Solar Highways. If we were able to construct a save road, parking lot, highway materials w/ photovoltaics under super strong glass we could harness enough energy to cover ALL USA ENERGY NEEDS PLUS 15%!!!

Let that resonate for a moment.

No oil based electricity.

No coal powered electricity.

All solar. ALL SOLAR.

They even go on to explain how post consumer waste, otherwise headed for landfills, would be the source, mixed with other organic materials, to form the base and structure for the panels.

And finally, from a safety perspective, they plan to include embedded LED lights, powered by the solar, that would be used for a myriad of reason like lighting up crosswalks, giving messages like “SLOW DOWN, CONSTRUCTION AHEAD,” changes in speed limit, etc…

Watch the entire video here.

As I was noodling around in related news, I came across another neat happening in the past year. The State of Oregon is putting together some of the first highway solar projects along the highway like the arrays along the autobahn in Germany.

You can view that video here.

In a post by the Council on Environmental Quality on the White House website, it was announced today that the President “plans to install solar panels and a solar hot water heater on the roof of the White House Residence, a project that demonstrates American solar technologies are available, reliable, and ready for installation in homes throughout the country.”

Please take a moment to read the entire post here.

This is a great article from the NY Times Energy and Environment blog about Passive House trending, standards, technology and more. One of our Energy Technicians, Zandy Sievers, recently finished the Passive House training this summer with Katrin Klingenberg, the director of the Passive House Institute-U.S. based in Urbana, Ill.

The story concedes that while the upfront costs can be 15-50% higher, the lifetime energy consumption is roughly 80% less than a normal home.  Even this Vermont home will need no furnace, with heat generation coming from radiant floor heat and a small wood stove.  Their hot water will be heater with solar thermal tubes.

Read the entire story here and check out the video below.

SBS is about to begin it’s first SOLAR BLITZ!  From September 15 – October 10th we will really be showcasing, educating and selling our Solar PV expertise.

As a NABCEP certified Solar Installer, SBS has been given a number of $6,000 PV grants from Northwestern Energy to give to YOU… residential and commercial customers.

Couple this with the 30% Federal Tax Credit and the $500 per MT tax payer State Tax Credit and you can get into a 2kW Solar System for under $5,000!

Add to that the potential for financing through the Montana DEQ revolving loan fund (4% financing for 10 years, oac) and you can now get into solar with no money down!

To sweeten the pot further, all new customers between Sept 15 and Oct 10, 2010 will receive a FREE professional home or building energy efficiency audit with analysis.  This is a $750 value.

Contact us to get started with solar today – 406.541.8410, www.sbslink.com, info@sbslink.com

Molly Bradford
Marketing Director

We finished the off-the-grid system in Maui in June of 2010 and it seems to be working wonderfully all summer.

All in all, we installed a 5.6 kW solar array, battery bank and inverter system on the island of Maui for an off grid facility. The system powers a main house, two guest houses and a pool house.

We had fun with this project as it is located in such a beautiful part of the world and the local Hawaiians where integrally involved in the installation work. Because the system is beyond the power lines we employed a large battery bank and backup generator fired by propane. This system design varies greatly from grid connected systems where batteries are seldom employed as the power grid serves as “financial” power storage.

Cloud cover and precipitation vary extremely from 12 to 360 inches per year depending upon the microclimate which made the system sizing a bit more challenging. To compensate for this variable we included a 30 kW generator and four inverter/battery chargers which can recharge the batteries in several hours time.

Here is our photo show of the final install, inverter and battery bank, etc… If you want captions, please click on the image below and then on the icon in the lower right w /the four-arrows for full-screen mode.

Dan Bradbord, SBS Solar Guru

dbrandborg@sbslink.com

The Clawson NorthSlope Window, Montana-Made with sustainably harvested Larch and US Glass

Okay, it’s not really our window per se.  But that doesn’t stop us from being excited about SBSs new relationship with the exceptionally rad window.

We are pleased to announce our official relationship as a dealer of one of the most unique, greenest, and most handsome windows manufactured anywhere in the world – the NorthSlope Window by Clawson.  Framed in Treadlight™ larch, harvested only from forest restoration sites, this window highlights the beautiful honey and cinnamon grain and dark pinhole knots of the wood, while giving high performance in energy efficiency and durability.

The NorthSlope Window incorporates a top–of–the–line, energy–efficient spacer system with high–performance, double Low–E glass to offer unmatched thermal performance, meeting Energy Star requirements.  Because these products are manufactured by U.S. regional glass makers, there is the added value of still greater “locally sourced” benefits.  The window contributes toward satisfying several credits under green–building rating systems, including LEED® and NAHB’s National Green Building Program.

Read the rest of the store at Treadlight by NorthSlope Sustainable Wood.