Climate change is something business can fix

by Zach Bernstein

 

Probably one of the oddest statements you hear in politics nowadays is “I’m not a scientist.” The idea, of course, is that because politicians aren’t climate scientists, they’re not qualified to say that climate change is real.

Of course, you don’t have to be a scientist to know climate change is real — although the vast majority of climate scientists do know that — or to understand how its effects, such as extreme weather or damaging heat waves, can be devastating to businesses and the economy.

That’s why the introduction earlier this month of the final Clean Power Plan is such an important event — because it represents the single biggest step the U.S. government has taken to deal with climate change. But to make it work, states will need to step up in a big way — and the business community will need to push for that to happen.

Addition by subtraction

Overall, the final rule will require 32 percent reductions in carbon emissions by 2030, using 2005 levels of carbon dioxide as a baseline — an easier threshold to meet than current levels, whichcontinue to rise on a yearly basis. But that reduction is the national aggregate. Go down to the state level, and things change considerably.

Each state will have its own emission reduction threshold to meet, based on factors such as the number of oil and coal plants and the potential for increased renewable energy installation.

That’s why some states will have very low goals to meet — for example, Idaho at 10 percent reduction and Connecticut at 7 percent have the lowest bars to reach. (Alaska and Hawaii, as non-contiguous states, have not been given targets yet; Vermont does not have a target because it has no coal-fired plants.)

Best of all, states get to decide how to meet the targets. States such as the Dakotas, which have some of the highest emissions reductions, also have some of the fastest wind speeds in the country, making wind energy an attractive choice for them. Others could invest in renewables such as solar, hydropower or biomass, or through energy efficiency.

States even have the option to join together in a regional energy market, similar to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) in the Northeast.

This all sounds great, right? Well, there are still a few problems.

State of play

Sixteen states, many of which receive the vast majority of their electricity from coal, are suing the EPA to try to overturn the rule. This isn’t new, either; 15 states previously had sued to block the rule before it was even finalized, but the courts dismissed that suit.

Even if the EPA wins, some — including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) — have urged states to simply refuse to develop a plan.

There are a few reasons why his idea is terrible. For one thing, states that don’t set up their own plans will have to use one created by the EPA — and there’s a good chance that those states will see bigger energy rate hikes than if they created their own.

The bigger risk, however, is that states refusing to commit to a plan will limit the rule’s effectiveness, not just for dealing with climate change but also for improving economic growth.

Because the EPA is limited in how much authority it would have to curb emissions — under the Clean Air Act, it may be able to curb only emissions from coal-fired power plants, not require states to invest in renewables or energy efficiency — a federal plan would be leaving those other tactics unused. Those cleaner energy sources are not only crucial for economic growth; they’re also key tools for fighting climate change.

The business of cutting carbon

Considering how many people have claimed these rules will be job-killers, small businesses might be the last people you’d expect to back these rules. But national, scientific polling released by ASBC last year confirms that they’re on board: 64 percent  of small business owners nationwide said government regulation was needed to reduce carbon emissions from power plants.

That may not make a lot of sense at first, until you consider another result from the same poll: 53 percent of small business owners believed climate change adversely would affect their businesses. Nearly one in five said it already had.

We’ve written in the past about how there’s really not as much of a gap between liberals and conservatives on climate change as one might think. Yes, there’s differences of opinion on the solutions, but having people sit down and talk together makes it clear there is actually broad agreement on climate change being a real economic threat. What we need now is for policymakers at all levels of government to realize that.

Business people can help. One is to tell their governors to develop a plan instead of stalling.

Another is to attend the ASBC Sustainable Business Summit Sept. 29-Oct. 1 in Washington, D.C. Among the presentations and discussions will be a session called “Getting Serious about Climate Change — Putting a Price on Carbon.”

While that’s a somewhat different issue from the Clean Power Plan, this discussion — featuring political leaders from both sides of the aisle, U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and former Congressman Bob Inglis (R-SC) — is a chance to begin a new dialogue and find business-friendly solutions to climate change that all stakeholders can agree on.

Ideally, discussions about transitioning from fossil fuel should include all stakeholders —and certainly all types of business. By following an approach that is balanced, pragmatic and non-ideological, business people can contribute a much-needed reset to a conversation that has become too polarized. Together, we must work to find a solution. The alternative is unthinkable.

Red flags in that vacation-rental request? Trust your gut

If you get a vacation rental request from an Oregonian with a Texas business address and Illinois driver’s license whose check is mailed to you from Ohio, you, um, might want to think twice about doing business with him.

Oh, and by the way, that check will likely be for more than the rental amount. Just cash the check and send him the difference. And, hey, keep some for yourself for your time.

A North Kitsap real estate agent — we’re not disclosing her name because she is a plaintiff in a protection order in another state — isn’t the first person to get caught in David Sisico’s tangled web. Ah, and what a tangled web it is.

Type “David Sisico” in an Internet search engine, and the name (real, made up, borrowed, stolen?) pops up in reference to similar alleged scams.

The local real estate agent reported her interaction with “Sisico” to the Kitsap County Sheriff’s Department, the Bainbridge Island Police Department, the Internet Crime Complaint Center, and the U.S. Postal Service.

Here’s what went down.

On May 22, the real estate agent — she lives on Bainbridge but works in North Kitsap — listed a Poulsbo vacation rental she owns on craigslist.com.

On May 24, she received an email from a “David Sisico” expressing interest in renting the home from June 13-20 for his honeymoon. “Am coming there with my wife and i [sic]. We are coming for honeymoon,” the email states. “Don’t hesitate to email me with your total cost for the whole 1 week.”

On May 26, the real estate agent emailed him the costs and a rental application, and asked for a copy of his driver’s license or other form of photo ID.

On May 31, a person claiming to be Sisico emailed that the payment was mailed, “however, there was a mistake on the check written over and above the requested amount,” the real estate agent reported. “David requested I send via Western Union [the] difference in the amount … This was when I suspected this was a scam.”

She played along. She emailed back that she couldn’t do anything until she received all proper documents, completed and signed, with a copy of a photo ID.

On June 10, after several emails back and forth, the real estate agent received a USPS Priority Mail pouch containing a check for $2,085 (the rental and deposit was $1,500). The USPS label stated it was sent from H&S Company, Inc., in Celina, Ohio. The check was written on an Allison Ranch Corporation check — the company is located in San Angelo, Texas — on an account at the First National Bank of Sonora, Texas.

“Sisico” later emailed and asked that the difference be sent to his travel agent, Dale Snyder, in Miamisburg, Ohio.

On June 12, she emailed Sisico that the “date has passed necessary to complete your reservation” and that she was unable to complete the reservation request.

She heard from him one last time: On June 14, warning her “[I] am not in caliber of whom you can cheat on ok … i work for C.T.U. and [my] bride work with the S.N.A. I Need to hear back from you before i make the right decision. Good luck.”

The real estate agent called the sheriff’s office.

Investigators called First National Bank in Sonora, Texas and were told the account was closed. The Herald left a phone message Aug. 24 with Allison Ranch Corporation which, according to online business directories, is in the “Airports, Flying Fields, and Airport Terminal Services” business. An email message was left with the owner of H&S Company in Celina, Ohio.

The real estate agent said local authorities couldn’t do anything about it because she didn’t lose any money. But the information was sent to the U.S. Postal Service, she said, because USPS was used in an attempt to commit fraud, a federal offense.”

Her only losses were time spent chasing a wild goose — or, in the case of Sisico, a likely ghost.

Detective Sgt. Scott Weiss of the Bainbridge Island Police Department, which also investigated the case, said consumers should look for red flags and trust their gut.

Some red flags, according to Weiss:

— The subject you’re corresponding with is involving multiple names and addresses. David Sisico gave his residential address as an apartment in Portland, Oregon; sent payment on a check belonging to a company in Texas; used USPS Priority Mail out of Ohio; asked that the difference in what he sent and what was requested be sent to another party

— You get a check for above the amount you requested — oops, the sender will write — and you’re asked to send the difference back but keep some for your time.

— The messages read as if they’re not written by the same person. In the emails from “Sisico,” some use proper English, grammar and punctuation, while others don’t. “It may be several different people trying to draw people in,” Weiss said.

— It appears to be too good to be true. “It’s likely not,” Weiss said.

Some things you can do to protect yourself:

— Check the Internet. “A lot of times when we get these reports, I Google the name and usually get those ‘Have you ever been scammed by this guy?’ websites,” Weiss said. “That’s something else someone can do if they have a computer — check the Internet.” Incidentally, the names David Sisico and Dale Snyder show up on several scam-alert websites. In several instances, the messages sent to the North Kitsap real estate agent are the same as those sent to others.

— Wait till the check clears. “We’ve had businesses on the island in the past, where it involved a piece of art in the store,” Weiss said. “Don’t send off the item until the check clears.”

— Protect your Social Security number and your credit. Go to http://www.ssa.gov and establish an account. “You generate your own password and login, that way your Social Security number is password protected,” Weiss said. “Go to the credit reporting agencies and set up a credit watch if you think your account has been compromised.”

— Contact police or, at least, the Internet Crime Complaint Center. The IC3, as it’s known, is a task force of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National White Collar Crime Center, and the Bureau of Justice Assistance. You can file a complaint online.

Weiss said that even though the real estate agent didn’t lose any money, she did the right thing going to authorities. “That’s the only way we can gather information on these people,” he said.

DIFFERENT YEARS, DIFFERENT RECIPIENTS, SAME MESSAGEThis is the first email received by the North Kitsap real estate agent from someone claiming to be “David Sisico.”

May 24, 2015: “Hello, Am David. Please let me know if there a place for a week 7 night available from { June 13 to 20 } or you can get back to me with any other date available at your rental JUNE, JULY OR AUGUST, I want you to email me if available with total cost for the whole 1 week 7night. Am coming there with my wife and i We are coming for honeymoon. No smoke, No drink, No pets. Don’t hesitate to email me with your total cost for the whole 1 week.”

This is an email received by a Washington member of the Timeshare User’s Group bulletin board service, http://www.tugbbs.com.

May 12, 2009: “Hi…my name is Mr David Sisico….Please let us know if there a place for a week night available from ( September 20 to 27 ) or any other time available at your resident. I want you to email me if available with total cost for the whole 1 week. am coming there with my wife and i We are coming for honeymoon. No smoke, No drink, No pets. Don’t hesitate to email me with your total cost for the whole 1 week.”

In response to the May 12, 2009 email, another timeshare owner wrote, “Boy, that Mr David..Sisico must be planning to get married and divorced really fast! He wanted to rent my place for a June honeymoon!

– See more at: http://www.american-apartment-owners-association.org/property-management/marketing-vacant-units/red-flags-vacation-rental-request-trust-gut/#sthash.tNukJrKo.dpuf

Natural Building: Rediscovering the wonder of building with mud

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Video screen capture Permaculture Magazine

As someone who has spent a good deal of time visiting various permaculture/back-to-the-land projects, I’ve seen a fair number of cob, straw bale and rammed earth homes and buildings. From Ben Law’s stunning woodland home to an endangered “hobbit house” in Wales, it seems like buildings created with these techniques are almost always exceptionally beautiful.

But I confess that I have sometimes wondered whether natural building would always remain confined to the quirky “hippie” niche, in terms of the mainstream building industry. There are signs, however, that things may be changing.

From ultra-efficient (and conventional looking!) prefabs with straw bale insulation toEurope’s largest rammed earth structure, there now appears to be a good deal of crossover between natural building techniques and at least some elements of the modern construction industry.

So what better time than now to revisit the basics. This video from the Living with the Land series explores some of the various techniques that make up “natural building.” Alongside explaining the difference between rammed earth, cob, straw bale and timber frame, the video also makes a solid case for why these techniques are important—namely they’ve been used and refined over thousands of years, and hence we know many of their advantages and limitations already. That doesn’t mean they can’t be combined with “modern” technological advances. But it does mean we shouldn’t abandon them for our newfangled (and decidedly imperfect) model of resource intensive building that has dominated the last century or so here in the West.

For your information, this is the same video series from Permaculture Magazine which also brought us segments on vegan organic agriculture, holistic planned grazing, astunning forest garden, no-dig market gardening and permablitz garden make-overs.

Related on TreeHugger.com:

• Prefab straw bale houses hit the market in Bristol
• After a long fight, Charlie’s Hobbit House in Wales faces demolition
• Thermal Mass, Careful Siting and Shading And Natural Ventilation Keep This Building Busy
• It’s a mud mud mud mud world: Herzog & de Meuron design Europe’s largest rammed earth building

How to Turn Evictions into Growth Opportunities

by Marc Courtenay in Articles

There is nothing fun about the eviction process. However, when a resident stops paying rent or becomes a problem tenant, appropriate action must be taken. But property managers can turn this frustrating process into a growth opportunity to find new owners. You might also discover potential clients that are ready to sell their “headache” properties.

Turn the stress of evictions into an opportunity for your business
First, check in with the local Housing Court, District Court, or call both the City and County Circuit Courts to find out if there’s a way to contact owners that are in the process of evicting their residents. These landlords may be trying to go through the process themselves and often are experiencing both aggravation and financial hardship. They’re often more open to accepting help offered or free advice. Send them a letter or see if you can acquire their phone numbers. Give the owner a call to let them know you’ve had experience with turning the eviction process, a real lemon, into lemonade.

For example, one property manager I know sends a letter to property owners who aren’t her clients … yet. She begins the letter by simply stating she’s a property manager who is available to help these owners with the process. Since almost all evictions are a pain-in-the-neck, she offers solutions, relief, and even suggests what she calls “The Ultimate Solution.” Then she lets them know that she has clients who may be interested in buying the property if the owner is willing to consider it. Selling or doing a 1031 exchange may be just what the owner is ready for. This often begins a dialogue that in time creates a relationship. At the very least she positions herself as a property manager who can take their stress away and do what is needed to help them.

Know the eviction process in your area
A property manager or owner who wants to evict a resident must fastidiously follow state and local laws. The process of eviction may be expedited; but Rule #1 is doing everything exactly by the book. If the property manager/owner makes mistakes in serving an eviction notice, for example, the eviction case might be thrown out and the process, including the legal aspects, will begin again.

In speaking with property managers in many different states, I’ve learned that one of the most important steps to completing an eviction successfully is to take the first step with precision. What’s the first step? End the tenancy by serving an eviction notice. Many property managers hire people to serve these notices when they know residents will be home. There are several kinds of eviction notices that can be used, and depending on the state you’re in, some are more legally powerful than others. Here are some of the most common ones:

Nonpayment of rent: If the resident doesn’t pay the rent when it’s due, the landlord can serve a notice and give the resident a certain timeframe (usually 3–5 days) in which to pay. If the resident pays the full amount in the time stated, there can be no eviction.

Fixing a violation: Some states let the property owner send the non-paying resident a notice insisting the specific violation of the rental agreement be resolved. The notice must clearly state the amount of time the resident has to correct the violation.

Unconditional notice: In some states a notice may be served on a resident to move without any exceptions. In most places this can only be done if the resident has seriously violated the rental agreement or is breaking the law in their residence.

30-day or 60-day notices: In most states a property owner can give an eviction notice for a resident to move without giving any reason. The time allowed under state law for such a notice is usually 30 or 60 days, but it may be as short as 20 days or as long as 90 days.

Remember, some states or cities require owners to pay relocation expenses in some situations, like evicting a senior citizen or disabled tenants, or for units that are being converted to condos.
Make sure you know the exceptions to the laws concerning eviction in your area. Know both your owners’ and your residents’ rights to handle an eviction effectively.

What you need to know to achieve LEED certification in 2015

 by Dean DiPietro

Is your goal to earn LEED certification for your project in 2015? Before Greenbuild? We understand that many project teams have timelines set around major events. To support this, we’ve created the tables below (based on typical review timelines), which specify the deadlines you’ll need to meet in order to have your project certified by either Greenbuild 2015 or the end of this year.

The following deadlines apply to all commercial rating systems (not including projects engaged in LEED volume certification). These timelines also assume that no appeal review is necessary. Appeal reviews typically take 20-25 business days, expedited appeal reviews are on a 10-business day timeline.

Regardless of when a deadline occurs, all project teams hoping to achieve review milestones by a certain date should inform GBCI of their specific needs. Reviewers will make every effort to accommodate reasonable requests, subject to capacity’.

Regular Review Timeline

Milestone	Application Type & Review Phase	Application submitted, payment cleared	Target Return Date
Certification before Greenbuild (Nov. 18)	Standard Preliminary Review	Aug. 13, 9:00 am ET	Sept. 11 (approx.)
	Standard Final Review**	Oct. 16, 9:00 am ET	Nov. 13 (approx.)
	Construction Preliminary Review	Aug. 13, 9:00 am ET	Sep. 11 (approx.)
	Construction Final Review**	Oct. 16, 9:00 am ET	Nov. 13 (approx.)
Certification before the end of 2015*	Standard Preliminary Review	Sept. 21, 9:00 am ET	Oct. 19 (approx.)
	Standard Final Review**	Nov. 23, 9:00 am ET	Dec. 23 (approx.)
	Construction Preliminary Review	Sept. 21, 9:00 am ET	Oct. 19 (approx.)
	Construction Final Review**	Nov. 23, 9:00 am ET	Dec. 23 (approx.)

 

Table 2. Expedited Review Timeline

If you’re seeking an Expedited Review please see table below and note the surcharge for the LEED Registration and Certification Fees. The expedite surcharge is in addition to the regular certification fee. The availability of expedited review timelines is based on GBCI capacity. If you plan to request an expedited review, contact GBCI at least 10 business days prior to submitting your application.

Milestone	Application Type & Review Phase	Expedited Surcharge	Application submitted, payment cleared	Return Date
Certification before Greenbuild (Nov. 18)	Expedited Standard Preliminary Review	$10,000 USD	Oct. 9, 9:00 am ET	Oct. 23 (guaranteed)
	Expedited Standard Final Review**	Included in preliminary	Oct. 30. 9:00 am ET	Nov. 13 (guaranteed)
	Expedited Construction Preliminary Review	$5,000 USD	Oct. 9, 9:00 am ET	Oct. 23 (guaranteed
	Expedited Construction Final Review**	Included in preliminary	Oct. 30. 9:00 am ET	Nov. 13 (guaranteed)
Certification before the end of 2015*	Expedited Standard Preliminary Review	$10,000 USD	Nov. 16, 9:00 am ET	Dec. 2 (guaranteed)
	Expedited Standard Final Review**	Included in preliminary	Dec. 9, 9:00 am ET	Dec. 23 (guaranteed)
	Expedited Construction Preliminary Review	$5,000 USD	Nov. 16, 9:00 am ET	Dec. 2 (guaranteed)
	Expedited Construction Final Review**	Included in preliminary	Dec. 9, 9:00 am ET	Dec. 23 (guaranteed)

* These timelines include a 2-business day buffer for the Thanksgiving holiday (USGBC is closed). Additionally, USGBC is closed from Dec. 25, 2015, through Jan. 1, 2016.

** Regular review timelines include 25 business days after the preliminary review is returned for project teams to prepare clarifications and submit for final review. Expedited review timelines assume 5 business days for the same.

Atomizing showerhead claims 70% water savings and ‘significantly superior’ shower

© Nebia

This startup has re-engineered the showerhead to be radically efficient in conserving both water and heat, without sacrificing comfort.

Quite a few years ago, when I was deep in my Buckminster Fuller fanboy phase (OK, so I’m still kind of in that phase), we were living in a tiny house, hauling all of our own water and using a Humanure composting toilet. I was feeling really proud that we could use a single 5-gallon solar shower to get all three of us clean, and that we could get all of our dishes and other washing done with another 5-gallon water system, but then I read about Bucky’s “Fog Gun Cleaning System” (not to be confused with a fog gun-cleaning system) and realized we still had a long way to go to true water efficiency.

Fuller’s design used 90% compressed air (at 200 psi), and just 10% water, in the form of atomized droplets, which he claimed would use just 1 pint of water per hour, and I remember thinking that here we are, some 50 years later, still wasting both water and heat with conventional showerheads, while this genius of an idea was relegated to a footnote in history books.

Fast-forward to 2015, and a startup called Nebia has now picked up where Fuller left off (sort of), with the launch of its revolutionary showerhead, which uses a similar technology, although without the compressed air component, to deliver radical water savings in the shower. The Nebia atomizing showerhead is actually much simpler than the system Fuller designed, as it is meant to be a drop-in replacement for existing showerheads that works with existing plumbing, and while it doesn’t even come close to Fuller’s ‘1 pint per hour’ claims, the Nebia is claimed to reduce shower water use by 70%, while also being 13 times more thermally efficient.

In a nutshell, the Nebia atomizes the water into tiny droplets that have “10 times more surface area” than the water drops from a conventional showerhead, allowing users to get just as clean (“more water comes into contact with your body” than with a traditional model”) while also warming the air around them more efficiently. It’s described as delivering a “warm and cozy mist” that not only cleans your body, but also provides a “significantly superior shower experience” overall.

The Nebia showerhead is said to use just .75 gallons per minute (gpm), which is less than the 2 gpm from EPA Water Sense-rated fixtures, and is estimated to enable an average California home of four people to use about 21,000 fewer gallons of water per year, saving about $397 per year on both water costs and water-heating costs.

I love almost everything about this idea, but I have a hard time loving the price tag attached to it. Backers of the Nebia crowdfunding campaign can reserve a single unit for $299 (said to be a $399 retail value), and the company claims that the device will pay for itself in less than two years, based on the water usage in an average US home. TheNebia is a good-looking device overall, with a height-adjustable aluminum bracket and an additional hand-held shower wand, but the showerheads themselves are essentially plastic (“a high density polymer with thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU)”), and the atomizing nozzles on the units appear to be exceptionally prone to being blocked by hard water deposits, so the $400 cost of a single unit seems way out of line to me (says the guy who has to clean the mineral scale from his shower and faucet screens every week).

The Nebia showerhead does look like it could be an excellent investment for institutions and businesses that use a lot of water in their showering facilities, allowing them to conserve water while saving money on both the cost of water and the cost to heat it, and the company is offering a special deal on a bulk purchase ($10,000 for 40 units) for those situations.

While you’re waiting for this showerhead technology to hit the market, here’s a homegrown shower hack that can save at least as much water as the Nebia, and which only costs about $20. Buy a garden sprayer at the hardware or garden store (the kind that has a small tank, a wand with a nozzle on the end, and a hand pump to pressurize it). Remove the long wand and replace the nozzle on the end of the hose, fill it with warm water and pump it up, take it into the shower with you, and use that instead of your showerhead. It takes a little practice to learn how best to use it (such as not filling it completely full of water, so that it can be pressurized accurately without having to constantly pump it), but this system works pretty well and makes a great camping or roadtrip shower setup.

New gadget enables on-demand solar energy, without installing panels

by Derek Markham (@derekmarkham)

© SunPort

If you want to use solar power, but can’t install solar panels, the new SunPort gadget aims to make going solar easy and affordable.

Although residential solar is getting cheaper and cheaper all the time, it’s not for everyone, yet choosing renewable energy doesn’t always have to require a huge financial commitment, or even a rooftop. Instead of generating solar energy onsite with a solar array, a new solar delivery model, called SunPort, uses a small gadget that plugs into a standard wall socket and allows users to choose solar power on demand.

The SunPort device and its accompanying app uses Internet of Things (IoT) technology to track how much grid electricity you’re using through it, and then automatically purchases solar microcredits (called SunJoules) through the nonprofit ReChoice. These solar microcredits are formed by breaking up larger Solar Renewable Certificates (S-RECs) into increments small enough to be used for an individual’s electricity usage. This system allows SunPort users to upgrade their use of grid electricity to the consumption of clean renewable solar energy instead, and requires no lengthy commitment or hefty financial costs.

“These solar credits, officially called Solar Renewable Energy Certificates (S-RECs), are created every time real solar is produced from real panels and delivered to the electric power grid. They actually offer the only way to use solar without going off the grid. That’s why S-RECs were invented—to let anyone access solar power and help grow the solar energy market.” – SunPort

The SunPort can be plugged in anywhere you would normally plug in your devices, whether it’s your home or a coffeeshop or work, so it’s a simple way to choose solar no matter where you are. The SunPort app not only tracks your personal solar electricity usage through a single device or set of them, but also lets you track the collective impact of all SunPort users as well.

While the SunPort is only designed to work for a single outlet, powering individual devices (or multiple small devices), not an entire house, it might be easy to dismiss this project as one with an incredibly small effect, but at the core of the SunPort initiative is the intention of increasing demand for solar, which could help to drive the overall market. And for those who do wish to power their entire home with solar, without installing solar panels, many utilities offer the choice of purchasing an equivalent amount of solar energy through their billing system.

“SunPort drives us to think differently about what it means to go solar. It gives anyone the ability to use solar energy without having to own a rooftop or install panels. Since SunPort enables drastically increased personal use of solar, it serves as a new mechanism to create and aggregate demand for solar energy. Our hope is that widespread adoption can increase the value of solar energy to the point it unleashes much more solar development across the country. Even moderate use can show our leaders that people are demanding a shift to renewable sources of energy.” – Paul Droege, creator of SunPort

According to SunPort, an entire month’s worth of solar energy purchased through the device will only cost about $1 or $2 USD (or around $20/year) which is a small price to pay for the option of getting clean electricity to power your devices. For a full-house solar array, it could easily set you back somewhere in the neighborhood of $10,000 or more, but for backers of the company’s Kickstarter campaign, a single SunPort (which also includes a year’s worth of unlimited solar energy credits) can be had for just $49, and backers at higher amounts can get multiple SunPorts for an even lower price.

Related on TreeHugger.com:

• Ebook offers plans for fast, simple, and scalable DIY solar-plus-battery system
• Two new U.S. solar initiatives could help level the playing field for low income households
• Peer-to-peer solar sharing network aims to make solar simple and accessible

Tags: Solar Gadgets | Solar Power

Innovus Power: A Generator That Plays Well With Renewable Energy

How a variable speed genset could smooth green power’s integration with microgrids—and beyond

by Jeff St. John

Marc Hoffman, CEO of startup Innovus Power, believes that the synchronous generator, the workhorse of the power grid for the past century, needs a makeover for the green-powered future.

Sure, power turbines that run at a fixed speed — 60 hertz, or cycles per second, in the U.S. — have served the grid well to date. But the increase in wind and solar power, which rise and fall with the weather, and uses inverters to turn direct current into grid-ready alternating current, presents them with a serious set of challenges.

These include low efficiency when they’re forced to ramp up and down to match fluctuations in renewable energy, with some strict limits on how low they can go before they need to be shut off entirely. Beyond that, fixed-speed generators have problems maintaining stable frequency under those circumstances, Hoffman said during a presentation at last month’s Grid Edge Live conference in San Diego.

For microgrids that run diesel generators to back up renewable energy, these problems can add up to rocketing fuel costs, excessive wear and tear, and the need to significantly oversize generators to cover relatively rare moments of fluctuating load, he said. For the grid at large, it could place strict limitations on how much renewable energy can be integrated before the need arises for excessive amounts of fossil-fuel-fired power plants, or expensive batteries, to back it up.

Innovus Power’s variable speed genset could solve those problems in one neat package, Hoffman believes. Developed over a decade of work in the marine engine and off-grid power space, the 600-kilowatt units combine a high-efficiency engine from Rolls Royce-owned manufacturer MTU, a permanent magnet-based generator from Finnish company Axco, and an AC-DC-AC power converter from wind turbine maker Northern Power Systems.

“We start by taking a generator and allowing it to run proportional to the load,” Hoffman said during his Grid Edge Live presentation. The unit’s engine has more flexibility than a traditional fixed-speed generator, he said. Then, that flexibility is expanded by the power conversion system, which provides a clean and stable source of alternating current.

The result, Hoffman told me in an interview, is a system that should cost less and work better than diesel-backed generators or lots of battery storage for the microgrid market, which GTM Research has estimated will grow to a cumulative $3.5 billion in the United States by decade’s end. In the longer run, it could also serve the needs of utilities seeking a flexible, yet scalable, solution to integrating an ever-growing share of renewables on their grids.

“You may look at our platform on the surface and say that it’s more complex at the micro level — and yes, it is,” he said. “But by solving what we think are the most important issues at the micro level, it then makes everything beyond it much simpler.”

Building a variable-speed generator where others have failed

Variable-speed generators have been out there for decades, but they’ve struggled with key technical and engineering challenges. “There are a lot of companies that have tried to do what we’re doing and have failed,” said Hoffman.

But in the last decade or so, consistent advances in power electronics have allowed the kind of combination system that Innovus is building to start to approach commercial viability, he said.

Innovus’ technology comes from Glacier Bay, a maker of diesel-electric marine propulsion systems, which Hoffman led as CEO. About two dozen ships now run on Glacier Bay systems, but the company couldn’t make the business work due to the relatively small market opportunity.

Innovus has raised from $4 to $6 million from three unnamed investors, Hoffman said. They include two individuals he knew from his years working at General Electric and aircraft engine maker Allied Signal, as well as a third angel investor.

The company’s executive team includes CTO Mark Preston, a veteran of Vestas, United Technologies and Northern Power Systems. It also includes Steve Levy, the VP of sales and business development, who previously held similar positions at aerospace giant Northrop Grumman and inverter maker Advanced Energy.

Innovus is looking to maintain high fuel efficiency and the constant delivery of clean and stable power while running at varying speeds. That allows the Innovus generator to run at lower than 30 percent capacity, a range that can only be accomplished with a steep sacrifice of efficiency by fixed-speed gensets.

“I don’t want to give too much away, but that’s in the know-how, that’s a big part of the secret sauce,” said Hoffman.

Innovus’ 600-kilowatt units are built to be stacked up to the megawatt scale, and come with a master control system that senses load. “That’s part of our IP, being able to detect load changes in a way that’s far more advanced than the way a synchronous generator would operate,” he said.

That should allow the system to integrate multiple power sources, whether they’re inverter-based renewable energy or battery storage systems or traditional spinning generators. With the benefit of the Northern Power Systems’ power converter, “the frequency coming out of it is perfectly stable, high-quality power — whether I have 10 of them or 10,000 of them, I have positive contribution to my grid.”

At the same time, “I am balancing out the unevenness of my renewables — and instead of transmitting these huge load changes from the clouds overhead, with all these big solar farms and everything else, I’m leveling everything out, and filling in the voids with a highly dispatchable system,” he said.

Testing against traditional battery-based options

All of these claims need to be backed up by real-world deployments, of course. Right now, Innovus is close to completing its first orders with one Alaska utility and another Australian project developer.

The Alaska customer is TDX Power, which has built a 1-megawatt wind farm and backup diesel generator array for the Aleutian Islands town of Sand Point, which has a 700-kilowatt peak demand. That’s forced TDX to curtail its wind production to as low as 20 percent of capacity at times.

According to an analysis using modeling tools from microgrid consulting firmHomer Energy, Innovus should be able to allow that wind capacity to be used for both electricity and additional uses like heating (noted as “dump power” on the chart below), while saving about 450,000 liters of fuel per year — a significant cost reduction for an island that must import all of its fuel.

In Australia, off-grid project development company EMC is looking at using the Innovus system to back up truck stops, mining operations and other remote locations where grid electricity is either very costly or simply unavailable. Unlike remote islands, diesel costs in mainland Australia are low enough to make a renewables-plus-batteries microgrid uneconomical — but not so low that the advantages of a flexible generator wouldn’t pay off, said Jamie Ally, director at EMC.

“There’s a lot of work happening off the grid in Australia, most of it diesel-fired,” he said. Mining companies pay roughly 70 cents per liter of diesel fuel, but often have to over-size their fixed-speed generator fleets to meet rare peaks in demand, which leaves much of that fleet sitting idle most of the time. Bringing in solar and wind power could offset those costs, but not without a certain amount of energy storage in the form of expensive lithium-ion batteries.

“The Innovus genset is going to allow us to achieve a very high renewable penetration without a very large battery,” he said. According to his analysis, the levelized cost of energy of a Western Australian microgrid system using an Innovus genset comes to 25 cents per kilowatt-hour, compared to 29 cents per kilowatt-hour for one using fixed-speed generators.

Beyond that, Innovus has a “technology pathway that looks at coupling renewables into their system in the future,” he said. “Because they have a DC bus in their genset, you could connect PV arrays and batteries on the DC bus.” That, in turn, “would allow you to eliminate all those inverters, and just use the inverter that comes with the Innovus generator, because it’s the same size as the system anyway. That’s a pretty attractive technology pathway and R&D pathway.”

Hoffman noted that this capability to link multiple DC generation sources into a single Innovus DC bus could lend an additional level of simplification to microgrid operators seeking the flexibility to grow with the times. The call isn’t just coming from off-grid realms, he added.

“We have one very large utility in Asia that’s now very interested in running some pilot systems,” said Ally. “What they’re concerned about is load defection — industrial and commercial customers seeing rising costs, and creating their own generation.”

One might argue that combining batteries with green power is a more environmentally friendly alternative, since it doesn’t imply any burning of fossil fuels. But pure battery systems still have a hard time penciling out in all but the most expensive fossil fuel markets.

Even if batteries get to the point where the round trip is more cost-effective than burning fossil fuel, “that’s great” for Innovus, Hoffman said. “We’d still say, dispatch it when it’s there. But it’s in storage’s best interest to have fossil fuel, or a fuel cell, or some dispatchable power source beyond your storage.”