The Bangor Daily News reports on the new partnership between ReVision Energy and Downeast Energy, aimed at making solar hot water solutions more available to Mainers as well as promoting Downeast’s biofuel product.

Mike McCormack, vice president of sales and marketing for Downeast, said the company’s customers have been asking about solar energy water heater systems with more frequency, both in surveys and in their contact with employees.

Downeast chose to seek an expert partner rather than build the solar capacity in-house, and McCormack approached ReVision, he said.

The partnership between a more traditional energy and an alternative energy firm may be seen as counterintuitive, said Phil Coupe, ReVision co-founder. After all, many seek solar or other energy resources to get away from fossil fuels.

“The reality is, everyone in Maine needs traditional fuels to make it through a Maine winter,” said Coupe.

Visit Bangor Daily News for full article.

The Times Record reports on newly announced partnership between ReVision Energy and Downeast Energy.

Downeast Energy an-nounced today a new “strategic partnership” with ReVision Energy, a company specializing in domestic solar water heating and electricity systems.

ReVision co-founder Phil Coupe said the partnership between a firm that delivers home heating oil and one that retrofits homes to reduce their dependence on fossil fuels “may seem counterintuitive” at first, but that the 103-year-old energy company and the solar power firm that started in 2003 can work better together.

“Mainers need traditional fuels to stay warm, but at the same time you can get 100 percent of domestic water heated from sunshine from May to October,” Coupe said. “I think the two companies can help (Mainers) become more energy efficient and that’s the value in the relationship.”

Coupe said the average solar water heating system costs between $5,500 and $6,500 — after a 30 percent rebate from the federal government and a $1,000 cash rebate from the state-run Efficiency Maine program — and can reduce annual oil consumption by around 250 to 300 gallons.

“At today’s oil prices, that results in about a six-year payback,” Coupe said.

Representatives said the companies remain separate and will not share any revenue but will begin a formal collaboration that both hope will lead to expansion in their respective markets.

Visit Times Record for full article.

The Portland Press Herald reports on a new high-efficiency 3-unit apartment building installed on Portland’s East End:

Paul Ledman and his wife, Colleen Myers, are using the power of the sun and air to make their Portland home perfectly comfortable with minimal energy from outside sources. Ledman says cutting down on usage doesn’t mean sacrificing comfort.

They had a dream when they purchased a vacant lot on Munjoy Hill, a perfect site at 62 Cumberland Ave. Ledman’s vision included not only a magnificent view of Portland from the upper floors, but also a way to build so there would be abundant heat, hot water and air conditioning for less than what most of us pay to outside companies.

“If you don’t waste energy, you don’t need to keep buying it,” he said.

Together with general contractor Mike White, owner of Island Carpentry, Ledman found the right people to explore options, make decisions, and do the hands-on work of creating an energy-efficient home to provide spacious living for himself and his family, plus two bright, attractive apartments, totaling three stories of living space and a garage.

Ledman says he used three basic components in the heating and ventilating design, and although the equipment doesn’t need to be over-the-top expensive, it does need to be the correct equipment … Photovoltaic (solar) panels on the roof generate electricity for the house. As a bonus, extra power produced now can also be used later, in a bank of sorts: Ledman gets credit from Central Maine Power for power he doesn’t use, for use on cloudy days. And that’s not just because Ledman is such a nice guy. It’s the law. The building is “on the grid” with Central Maine Power, and this credit system is regulated by the Maine Public Utilities Commission.

Full article by Kathy Eliscu available at: http://www.pressherald.com/life/homeandgarden/solar-on-munjoy-hill_2011-09-04.html?searchterm=solar+hot+water

The Morning Sentinel reported on the new TerraHaus eco-friendly student housing at Unity College.

Beth Staples writes:

Belfast-based G*O Logic architect Matthew O’Malia and carpenter Alan Gibson designed and built the nation’s first dorm to meet passive house certification standards.

The standards, the highest international standards for energy efficiency, require that the dorm use 90 percent less energy for space heating than standard buildings.

… A solar hot water system installed by ReVision Energy of Liberty and Portland will provide hot water for showers and washing dishes.

Jesse Pyles, Unity’s sustainablilty coordinator, said 10 of the college’s 500-plus students were chosen by lottery to live in the cottage.

The lottery winners agreed to participate in educational programs, including giving tours of the one-of-kind dorm.

Read more at The Morning Sentinel.

Photos from Our Solar Project Gallery

ReVision Energy co-founder and solar engineer, Fortunat Mueller, P.E., recently had a technical article of his regarding the merits of steamback as a method of solar hot water overheat protection published in Renewable Energy World. Steamback is an alternative to drainback overheat protection, which uses pure water as a heat transfer fluid and requires that the pipe run be pitched so that water does not stay inside solar collectors in freezing weather.

Below is some information from the article:

There are multiple design options to ensure systems don’t overheat, but as our industry grows and matures, installers know that customers demand a robust solution. Few customers want to invest significant sums to mitigate a relatively infrequent situation. Historically most closed-loop solar hot water systems have relied on control strategies that either dump excess hot water from the tank into a drain, or on dump zones which dump heat from the solar loop itself once the tank has reached a certain set point. Those strategies work, but the first wastes water and the latter wastes electricity, and both introduce additional costs and failure points to the system.

… In 2008, having experienced the limitations and liabilities associated with these other methods, we set out to find a better way to protect our installations from overheating and power failures. In researching literature, we discovered a method called steamback that can resolve many of the challenges of traditional systems. This simple method is widely used in closed-loop systems in Europe, especially ‘combi’ systems that provide both heat and hot water and thus are necessarily oversized during the non-heating season.

Unlike the traditional options, steamback is a passive overheat protection and doesn’t require additional hardware or introduce additional failure points to the system; it simply involves an understanding of the details of piping and collector geometry plus expansion tank sizing and location to capture and protect the coolant during an overheating situation.

Steamback systems work as follows: when the solar hot-water tank reaches its maximum temperature – typically around 180 degrees – the solar controller automatically switches the pump off. If the sun is still out and producing heat in the collector, the collector temperature will continue to climb. When the temperature of the water/antifreeze mixture in the collector rises above the boiling point (typically around 240-250 degrees depending on system pressure), it will start to boil. Since water vapor (steam) occupies about 1,600 times more volume than an equivalent amount of water as a liquid, it only takes a tiny amount of evaporation to fill the collectors with steam and push all of the remaining antifreeze mixture down into the expansion tank.

Read more at Renewable Energy World.

The VillageSoup writes about several new solar energy systems installed by ReVision Energy in the Unity area, including the MOFGA fairgrounds, Unity College, and a private home.

ReVision recently completed work on a Unity residential project, is working on a project with Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association’s “Red Barn” in Unity, and a hot water system at Unity College’s new dormitory, Terrahaus.

In addition to promoting renewable energy and encouraging the transition away from fossil fuels, the projects are especially relevant for the ReVision Energy team at its Liberty office, as six of the 11 employees are graduates of Unity College.

“This technology is something we are all passionate about,” said John Luft, general manager of ReVision Energy’s Liberty location, in a press release. “Being a graduate of Unity College, it takes on a special significance to be working in this industry because Unity places such an emphasis on becoming more and more environmentally friendly. Plus, working ‘close to home’ is special in its own kind of way.”

Unity College’s Terrahaus project will be the first American college residence with many environmentally-friendly features that will allow it to meet the Passive House standard. Among those features will be solar hot water.

More information and full article at Village Soup website.

Last week’s Mainebiz showcased ReVision Energy as a high point in Maine’s economy even as the outlook remains challenging for many companies. Citing national figures that showed the solar energy industry expanded by 67% in 2010, Mainebiz pointed out that ReVision mirrored this trend by adding 10 full-time employees in a year’s time, with projections to grow by a similar rate in 2011.

Here’s a clip from the article:

“Maine and New Hampshire are the two most oil-dependent states in New England per capita. And they have the highest CO2 emissions,” [ReVision Co-founder Phil] Coupe says, with 440,000 homeowners in Maine and 379,000 in New Hampshire heating their houses with oil. “We see a substantial market for renewable-energy solutions like solar hot water.”

ReVision performs more than 50% of the installations of solar hot-water and electric systems in Maine, according to Efficiency Maine. The company reported revenues of $6.5 million in 2009, and Coupe said that grew 5%-10% in 2010 …

A 2010 report by the Solar Energy Industries Association also points out the inconsistencies in growth across the country. “Even with spectacular growth, the U.S. market is slowed by the complexities of state-by-state differences in regulations, incentives, utilities and financing structures,” it states. Monique Hanis, the trade group’s spokeswoman, says the fastest-growing solar states last year — California, New Jersey, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Colorado and New York — all were helped by federal and state incentives.

… Dana Fischer, the residential program manager at Efficiency Maine, agrees that “there’s no question that other states have been more proactive on solar. Maine has limited rebates.” He says matters weren’t helped by a recent decision by the Legislature’s Energy and Utilities Committee to no longer fund a solar-energy rebate with a service utility charge on electric ratepayers’ bills. Fischer says that that surcharge amounted to an annual average of 32 cents per household.

Nonetheless, there are enough funds to finance solar rebates for up to two years at current rates before the agency needs to find a new source of revenue. “But there is no chance of increasing rebate programs to match what other states have currently,” Fischer says.

Read the full article over at Mainebiz

Bowdoin College’s 48 flat plate solar hot water collectors will provide more than half of the hot water used annually at their Thorne Dining Hall

With the installation of 48 flat plate solar hot water collectors, ReVision recently completed a solar hot water system that will provide more than half of the hot water used at Bowdoin College’s Thorne Dining Hall.

For Bowdoin College, who seeks to become carbon neutral by 2020, the savings of over 90,000 lbs of C02 emissions per year is an attractive benefit on top of the clean energy heating.

The Portland Press Herald recently ran a story lauding Bowdoin’s efforts:

The [carbon neutrality] program is based on a conviction that the planet is threatened by man-made climate change and that college campuses can take a leadership role in helping to stabilize the atmosphere.

… The first step in becoming carbon neutral is defining a starting point, a carbon footprint. Schools tally their heating, gasoline and power bills. They conduct inventories and use verifiable assumptions and calculations to estimate their greenhouse gas emissions for a given date.

Bowdoin determined that the school released 24,000 tons of carbon dioxide in 2008. The biggest sources came from electricity use, 44 percent, followed by heating and vehicles, 42 percent. The rest came largely from employee commuting, transmission line losses and travel.

… Beyond changing technology, Bowdoin also wants to use its educational mandate to change behavior. To meet the 2020 goal, it says, everyone on campus must share an awareness of carbon neutrality. That means developing energy-saving habits, such as shutting down computers and turning off lights.

The 48 flat plate solar hot water collectors will produce over 584,000,000 BTUs of thermal energy each year, or a savings of roughly 8,800 therms of natural gas annually. In the summertime it will mean significantly reduced runtime of a boiler dedicated specifically to Thorne Dining Hall, while in the winter the hot water supply is assisted with a central campus boiler that also provides space heat.

Possibly as exciting as the energy savings itself is the way that Bowdoin is creating fun, interactive tools for analyzing energy use and develop a culture of students, faculty, and staff who are energy conscious.

Check out this Flash-based energy production/analysis tool:

The transition to a clean energy economy is as much about changing our own attitudes towards energy as it is getting serious about fossil fuel alternatives. We’re thrilled to see Bowdoin College leading the way!

More Photos from our Schools/Nonprofits Photo Gallery: