Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Live reporting - Energy $ense


At the Franklin Library for the Energy $ense series presentation on Solar and Wind Installations. What grants and incentives are available?

Introduction by Ted McIntyre and Fred Schlicher

The audio version of this can be found here

Tyler's presentation:
Franklin Energy $ense Seminar
View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: solar energy)



Tyler Leeds
Project Manager, Massachusetts Renewable Energy Trust

Plug for energy efficiency
http://www.masssave.com/

Background
Commonwealth Solar
Micro Wind
Larger Wind
Q&A

Over 1000 active projects generating renewable energy in MA

Solar PV - photovoltaic

Map showing 50 communities within MA that are not eligible for grants

Key goals of Commonwealth Solar
  • coordinate efforts with MA DOER
  • target of 250 megawatts (NW) installed
  • provide a streamlined rolling rebate process
  • maintain a quality control function
MA is achieving 8 MW now, the goal of 27 MW is set for 2011

Rebates for residential up to 5 kilowatt systems (average home uses 4 kilowatts)
They would rebate 20 to 40 % of the installation

refer to website for details on the step by step process to install and apply
Q - where do farms fall?
A - farms are non-residential

Initial installations of micro wind have not been yielding as much as had been expected.
Still a learning process, where does it make sense, where doesn't it?

The opportunity maybe in the neighborhood net metering process. A neighborhood would get together to install a larger turbine for the 8-10 neighbors to utilize instead of a single installation.

Some municipalities do have special permitting processes for turbines

Big Apple Farm is looking to install the same size turbine as the one announced for the Mount St Mary's Abbey.

Location is key for wind, solar actually provides a better ROI than wind.

Q - is there a website that would provide information on wind strength
A - yes, one of the first things they did was to develop wind maps. (link to be provided later).

Multiple questions, good discussion, hopefully the recording will catch these.

Data acquisition system can tie to a website to provide real time updates on energy generated.
(update later)

All the steps to the process of determining eligibility for a solar rebate through to the installation and successful operation can be found on the masstech.org/solar site here.

The second part of the evening covered a local installer whose service includes navigating the permitting and approval process for the home owner or commercial owner.

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