SMCC’s SEA Director John Brautigam standing before a suite of solar energy systems recently installed by ReVision Energy.

ReVision recently wrapped installation of a suite of solar systems at Southern Maine Community College’s Sustainable Energy Alternatives (SEA) Center.

The SEA Center is a major part of SMCC’s efforts to become a regional center for education and training on renewable energy and sustainable building practices. The building is equipped with cutting-edge professional equipment and state-of-the-art educational tools designed to help students understand theories of building science including air infiltration, insulation issues, and thermal properties of building materials to help equip them for a career in energy efficiency and/or renewable energy.

To showcase the variety of solar energy installations likely to be encountered, SMCC had ReVision install two solar hot water systems, one with evacuated tubes and the other with flat plate collectors, as well as a modest photovoltaic (solar electric) array. All of the “guts” of the system – pipe run, tank, wiring, etc. – is on display and labeled so students can understand how it works and observe it in practice. The systems also feature robust web-based data monitoring options that will be viewable by both students and the public.

ReVision has had the pleasure of working with an SMCC Electric Engineering student, Melanie Janarelli, as an intern this summer, who helped install the system. Director John Brautigam is featured in one of our upcoming Solar Road Tour episodes, so stay tuned!

More Photos:

ReVision joined energy auditors, architects, and builders last week for a rally in support of UBEC, the Uniform Building and Energy Code, which sets standards for how homes and commercial buildings are built, from structural strength to ventilation, foundations and even the size of aggress windows. The Code also includes tough standards for energy conservation to help ensure new homes in Maine are less fossil-fuel dependent than their predecessors.

In a speech given by ReVision’s Jennifer Albee, we took the opportunity to highlight the value of the energy efficiency industry as a bright spot in a tough economy. Albee emphasized how exciting it is for a young person born and raised in Maine, to be in an industry geared for the future!

Make it a Sunny New Year!

There is bright news for both homeowners and businesses who are ready to make 2011 the year they finally go solar – several federal credits remain in place or have been extended.

In short:

• The uncapped 30% federal tax credit on residential solar electric and solar hot water systems remains in effect through 2016.
• In 2011 businesses can get a 30% federal cash grant in lieu of a tax credit, on top of state rebates (up to $2,000 in Maine, up to $50,000 in New Hampshire)
• Through 2012 bonus depreciation has been extended, allowing businesses to take up to 100% of the depreciation benefit of a solar energy system in year one for systems installed in 2011, and up to 50% in year one for systems installed in 2012 (with the rest coming over the next five years)

Read on for more specifics about each incentive.

Residential 30% Federal Tax Credit

The 30% federal tax credit is called the “Residential Renewable Energy Tax Credit” and was established by the federal Energy Policy Act of 2005.

This credit was initially capped at $2,000 for solar energy systems, but was expanded by The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 to be an uncapped rebate for 30% of the cost of a renewable energy system (both photovoltaic and solar thermal are eligible, along with small wind and geothermal heat pumps).

The 30% includes all cost of labor as well as equipment costs for the renewable energy system. The credit can also be carried forward to future tax years if you cannot take the full credit in the year the system was installed.

More information:

• A homeowner claims the 30% credit on IRS 5695, Residential Energy Credits (PDF)
• The Solar Energy Industries Association has a great solar federal tax incentive FAQ
• Also see DSIRE – Residential Renewable Energy Tax Credit

Note: This credit is not to be confused with the “Nonbusiness Energy Property Credit,” which expired in 2010. That credit specifically applied to home “energy efficient” improvements, specifically:

• Biomass stoves (wood and pellets)
• HVAC equipment
• Insulation
• Windows and doors
• Roofing improvements

If you did purchase any of the above that meet Energy Star criteria, you can claim up to $1,500 on your 2010 taxes. See Energy Star’s website.

Treasury Grant in Lieu of a 30% Investment Tax Credit

In late 2010 Congress extended the 1603 Program: Payments for Specified Energy Property in Lieu of Tax Credits.

This incentive allows businesses to receive a cash grant from the US Treasury in lieu of waiting until they file their taxes to receive the 30% federal tax credit (called the Business Energy Investment Tax Credit (ITC), but with similar rules as the residential program).

By having access to the treasury grant, the program allows businesses to receive the full amount of the emergy credit even if they do not have enough tax liability to take the full 30%.

It also helps all businesses by getting cash into their hands more quickly, rather than waiting until they can file their taxes.

More information:

MACRS + Bonus Depreciation

Under federal tax code, renewable energy systems qualify for a 5-year Modified Accelerated Cost-Recovery System (MACRS) depreciation schedule.

The exact benefit of this depreciation is complicated and varies depending on your businesses’ tax rate, but typically it adds up to an additional 25% of a solar energy project’s cost being offset by reduced tax payments.

To further sweeten this incentive, in 2011 bonus depreciation has been extended, letting a business enjoy most of the benefit in year one, rather than waiting for the entire five year schedule.

DSIRE sums it up nicely:

The federal Economic Stimulus Act of 2008, enacted in February 2008, included a 50% first-year bonus depreciation (26 USC § 168(k)) provision for eligible renewable-energy systems acquired and placed in service in 2008. This provision was extended (retroactively for the entire 2009 tax year) under the same terms by The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, enacted in February 2009. Bonus depreciation was renewed again in September 2010 (retroactively for the entire 2010 tax year) by the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010 (H.R. 5297).

In December 2010 the provision for bonus depreciation was amended and extended yet again by The Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010 (H.R. 4853). Under these amendments, eligible property placed in service after September 8, 2010 and before January 1, 2012 qualifies for 100% first-year bonus depreciation. For 2012, bonus depreciation is still available, but the allowable deduction reverts from 100% to 50% of the eligible basis.

The short of this is that a business that installs a qualifying solar energy system in 2011 can enjoy a 100% bonus depreciation the first year the system is commissioned, rather than waiting for the entire 5 year depreciation schedule. Also, a 50% bonus depreciation is available through 2012.

Given the time value of money and the tough economic climate, this benefit helps make solar energy systems more accessible in the near-term by businesses that will be able to save significant fossil fuel energy costs over the life of the system.

In fact, between the treasury grant, bonus depreciation, and generous state rebates, many businesses (particularly heavy water users like inns and restaurants) can enjoy a year-one payback on solar energy systems!

More information:

What Do Rebates Mean for Me?

Here are a few example solar energy projects to help illustrate how federal incentives affect solar energy economics.

Scenario #1- Residential SHW system

$10,500 installed cost
-$1,000 ME Solar Rebate (avg. $2,600 NH state rebate)
-$3,150 30% Fed Tax Credit
$6,350 Final Cost (40% savings with current incentives)

Scenario #2- Residential PV system 4kw (5,200 kWh/yr)

$19,000 installed cost
-$2,000 ME Solar Rebate (currently no NH state rebate)
-$5,700 30% Fed Tax Credit
$11,300 Final Cost (40% savings with current incentives)

Scenario #3- Commercial PV system

$100,000 installed cost
-$2,000 ME Solar Rebate (up to $50,000 in New Hampshire)
-$28,900 accelerated depreciation – avoided taxes over 5 years thanks to lowered net income, assumes 34% marginal tax bracket
-$30,000 30% Fed Tax Credit
$39,100 Final Cost (60% savings with current incentives)

Interested in learning more? Contact Revision Energy for a free consultation about how to take full advantage of the current government incentives available for renewable energy projects.

Clean energy advocates in New Hampshire have two big reasons to be thankful this season – the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission has announced an expansion of the solar hot water rebate available to homeowners and has released the application for their commercial solar hot water and solar electric rebate (PDF).

Here are some details on both programs:

Residential Solar Thermal is Hot

The solar hot water rebate in New Hampshire is tiered based on the performance of the system, which is expressed in MMBTU / year. This consists of a state rebate that ranges from $600-900 and a federal rebate which has been raised from $750 to $2,000.

Here’s what the rebate program looks like for different kinds of systems:

For a typical residential project (2 flat plate collectors which produce ~18.25MMBTU/yr) installed at a cost of around $10,500, the incentives amount to $5,750, well over half the cost of the system!

The rebates are retroactive, as well, so if you recently installed a solar hot water system and qualified for the New Hampshire state rebate, you can expect a holiday gift from the PUC soon.

Rebates Arrive for Business

The solar hot water system for Moat Mountain Brewpub will save the brewery an estimate 520 gallons of oil a year

Equally exciting is the arrival of the much anticipated commercial solar hot water and solar electric rebate.

This program makes $1,000,000 available to solar thermal and solar electric projects for businesses, schools, municipalities, apartment buildings – basically any structure not eligible under the residential program.

The rebates are pretty straightforward:

• Photovoltaic (Solar Electric): $1/Watt up to $50,000 (or 25% of the project cost, whatever is less)
• Solar Thermal rebate: $0.07 per kBTU/year up to $50,000 (or 25% of the project cost, whatever is less)

Like the residential solar hot water program, a RETScreen modeling analysis is used to calculate the kBTU/year performance of the solar hot water systems.  Solar electric is fixed based on the nominal wattage.

Solar Economics are Amazing

The generous rebate makes it extremely attractive to invest in solar if you’re a business.  Let’s take, for example, a medium scale solar thermal project for a business that uses a lot of hot water – a hotel or retirement home, perhaps – and is currently heating that water with oil.

We’ll propose a system of 20 flat plate hot water collectors and several super-insulated tanks that will produce over 182,500,000 BTUs/year of clean thermal energy.  We’ll imagine that the system will save 2,300 gallons of #2 oil per year, a result of both reduced oil use and greatly reducing standby losses of the oil boiler in the summertime.

Assuming this hot water system costs around $100,000 gross to install, the fuel savings alone will pay for the cost of the system within its first decade of operation.

However, now there is an exciting suite of rebates to apply:

$100,000 gross installed cost
($30,000) federal tax credit
($28,900) accelerated depreciation – avoided taxes over 5 years thanks to lowered net income, assumes 34% marginal tax bracket
($12,775) state rebate – $0.07/modeled kBtu/year
$28,325 net investment – less than a third of the total cost of the project!

Within this new context, that same solar hot water system will pay for itself within two years thanks to the fuel savings.

While the wasteful boiler imagined in this formula is a “best case” scenario for solar, the economics work out for businesses of all sizes who are ready to both take an enormous cut out of their carbon emissions and save money while doing it.

Contact us for more information about both the commercial and residential solar rebates or to schedule a free site evaluation.

Passive homes such as the GO Logic model house in Belfast, Maine, are still rare in America, but forward-thinking homeowners, builders, and architects are increasingly incorporating the strict German standard in new homes.

This weekend the New York Times highlighted the growing effort of architects, builders, and homeowners to create houses that meet the strict German Passive House standard.

The article, Can We Build in a Brighter Shade of Green?, follows the story of one super efficient home built in Vermont.

It notes both the challenges both with designing such an efficient house, and getting the required skills and materials to construct it in America:

While some 25,000 certified passive structures — from schools and commercial buildings to homes and apartment houses — have already been built in Europe, there are just 13 in the United States, with a few dozen more in the pipeline.

“Even though the passive house standard is tried and true, and is used all throughout Europe — we know it works, we know there’s some simplicity to it,” says Mrs. Landau, “here in the United States, we were reinventing the wheel.”

… In Europe, this design-and-construction balancing act has an established manufacturing base to feed it; in the United States, not so much.

“If we were in Europe, most of the materials and equipment would be off-the-shelf and readily available from local suppliers,” says Tedd Benson, owner of Bensonwood Homes, a high-efficiency timber frame builder based in Walpole, N.H., that is constructing the Landau house. “And they would have already been vetted and certified by the Passivhaus Institut, with their performance specifications already linked into the passive-house software.

“Here, we have to invent the systems and try to find the materials, products and equipment that will help us meet the passive-house standards.”

Despite an initial price premium (for additional design time, thicker walls and insulation), over the course of its life a Passive House will return the initial investment many times over. The Landaus (featured in the Times article) expect to have the energy efficiency investments pay for themselves within 10 years.

Here’s a video the Times produced on the project:

Journalist Tom Zeller Jr. went on to write about the general state of green building in a follow-up blog, When Green Building Is Not Green Enough.

In it, he cites design-focused (rather than energy-focused) architecture as one of the problems with building design, stating that “American architects are well schooled in matters of design, they often receive little training in the physics of how a structure breathes, how it consumes energy and how best to elevate its overall efficiency.”

While it is an accomplishment to see that “more than 1 million Energy Star qualified homes, which consume at least 15 percent less energy than conventional construction, have now been built in the United States,” Zeller goes on to say the “lack of [more] ambitious targets may actually be hindering the effort to address pressing problems like global warming.”

Why Code-Built is Not Efficient Enough

To understand why exceeding Energy Star ratings is desirable, Zeller includes a graphic of the HERS Index, a chart that shows the energy consumption of typical homes on a scale from zero to greater than 100, showing how different types of construction stack against each other.

Here’s the graphic, courtesy of Zero Energy Design:

We express the discussion in slightly different terms. Here’s a graphic from our renewable home heating page, where we frame the discussion of mechanical systems for heating a home in terms of btu/hrs required per square foot:

The underlying principle remains this: the more energy efficient a home is, the less heating load it requires. When minimal heating load is required, smaller, modest, and renewable heating options make sense, and monstrous fossil fuel heating systems are unneeded and uneconomical.

Going Passive in Maine

ReVision has worked on a number of high performance homes, here are links to a few:

• The GO Logic home in Belfast, Maine is the state’s first true passive house home. The prototype home has produced more energy than it has used to date and is a model for a new Belfast cohousing community.
• The home of architects Ian and Zofia Weiss uses many passive house principles. It uses radiant heat powered by solar hot water collectors with electric backup, and should eventually have grid-tied solar electric to make it near net-zero.
• The Bright Built Barn is a net-zero home in Rockland that incorporates leading-edge building practices and an innovative LED system to inform you as to whether the home is generating more energy than it is using.

On May 26, a day that hit 92 degrees (a +4 degree record), there was no mincing words.

A decorated and experienced panel, hosted by the Pew Charitable Trust, presented a talk called Energy & Climate Change: National Security Challenges and Opportunities.

The speakers included Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn (U.S. Navy ret), Captain Michael Green (U.S. Army veteran from the war in Afghanistan), and Jim Kesseli, President of the innovative engineering company Brayton Energy.

The Undeniable Inevitability

In 2007, a report was issued by the CIA’s think tank CNA, with advisory input from thirteen members of the military’s upper ranks. The report is called “National Security and the Threat of Climate Change” (PDF Download).

This report reaches a number of conclusions, which it does not shy from stating plainly:

Climate change acts as a threat multiplier for instability in some of the most volatile regions of the world … Unlike most conventional security threats that involve a single entity acting in specific ways and points in time, climate change has the potential to result in multiple chronic conditions, occurring globally within the same time frame.

Projected climate change will add to tensions even in stable regions of the world … Extreme weather events and natural disasters, as the U.S. experienced with Hurricane Katrina, may lead to increased missions for a number of U.S. agencies, including state and local governments, the Department of Homeland Security, and our already stretched military, including our Guard and Reserve forces.

Climate change, national security, and energy dependence are a related set of global challenges.

The military takes the relationship between climate change and energy very seriously. Here is a replica of a slide from Adm. McGinn’s presentation:

The Call to Act

In response to these dire findings, the US Military is taking aggressive action to change their fossil fuel usage.

The Pew Project on National Security, Energy and Climate released a report, “Reenergizing America’s Defense: How the Armed Forces Are Stepping Forward to Combat Climate Change and Improve the U.S. Energy Posture.”

The Pew commission documents a number of initiatives by all branches of the military, including:

• The US Army’s plan to build a 500-megawatt solar power generation plant at Fort Irwin, California and transition to the use of 4,000 electric vehicles during the next three years
• The Navy’s goal to reduce petroleum use in the commercial fleet by 50 percent by 2015 and launch the “Great Green Fleet,” a strike group fueled completely by alternative fuels, by 2016.
• The Air Force’s Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada – home to one of the largest solar arrays in North America, providing more than 25 percent of base energy, saving $1 million and reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 24,000 tons annually.
• The Marines’ goal to reduce energy intensity 30 percent by 2015, while simultaneously increasing renewable electric energy to 25 percent by 2025.

Green: The New Color of Patriotism

The speakers focused, in different ways on a simple conclusion – that our current path of reliance on oil harms not only the environment, but ourselves, domestically and internationally.

Army Capt. Michael Green, a New Hampshire native who has recently returned from the Middle East  struck the audience with this analogy: “When you think of a wind farm or a solar field, think of a World War Two victory garden.”

We couldn’t agree more!

Getting off oil is a most patriotic thing – not just as a way to preserve the old American way of life, but to spur the growth of the new one.

Nicknamed “Green Bean,” this new energy efficient Habitat for Humanity home boasts an R66 roof and R25 wall system.

A few weeks ago ReVision staffers Josh Baston and Geoff Sparrow helped with our second Habitat for Humanity project.

They installed and vented a 95% efficient condensing gas boiler for a new home that will house a single mother and child. These boilers achieve this high rate of efficiency by condensing exhaust gases as water vapor and recovering additional heat from them.

The home is nicknamed “Green Bean” by Habitat for Humanity, as it represents the 5th home in their green building efforts and was originally owned by LL Bean.

LL Bean found they needed to expand their parking lot to where the house was located, and rather than demolishing it they donated the house along with some funds to Habitat for Humanity.

Habitat took the house to its new location, and started greening the 1930s-era house in earnest.

Using a product called Nailbase, Habitat achieved an amazing R66 rating in the roof, and built up the walls to R25. The house is now so tight that they needed to install an HRV! The gas boiler that ReVision installed will be used for heating and domestic hot water.

ReVision’s first Habitat for Humanity project was a solar hot water system for a LEED home, installed in Portland. See the blog archives for a write-up or see more project photos.

From our Schools and Nonprofits Solar Photo Gallery:

See more installations in our Solar Projects Map

The GO Home in Belfast, Maine is slated to be the first “Passive House” in Maine. ReVision designed and installed the solar electric and solar hot water systems.

Come see the new super-efficient GO Home — at a Talk-and-Tour at the Belfast Free Library on Thursday, April 8, 2010 at 7 p.m.

On track to become the first Passive House certified home in Maine, The GO Home is the affordable and super-energy efficient model for the 36-home Belfast Cohousing and Ecovillage slated to begin construction in the Spring of 2010.

Why Build A Passive House?

The GO Home is designed to solve the problems of energy consumption and greenhouse gases resulting from poorly built, drafty homes, which are increasingly more costly to heat and hazardous to the environment.

Among the energy efficient building elements of this remarkable home are triple glazed windows, doors with three air seals, foundation insulation and comprehensive air sealing – including sealing underneath the foundation and on the building envelope.

To offset what energy the GO Home does consume, GO Logic called in ReVision Energy to install solar electric and solar hot water systems. The solar electric system consists of 2.7KW of Canadian Solar panels, which will offset roughly 4,900 lbs. of CO2 emissions annually. The 60-tube Apricus solar hot water array is sized to meet the needs of a family of four, and will produce an estimated 14,200,000 BTUs of clean, renewable heat energy annually.

So far, we have received a report that in March the prototype has produced more energy than it has used. According to CMP we used 137KWH, and made 184KWH, with a surplus of 47KWH!

This Thursday’s event will feature an unveiling and discussion of The GO Home at the Belfast Free Library followed by a preview Tour at 83 Crocker Road, Belfast, on Saturday, April 10 at 11 a.m.

For more information, please contact Matt O’Malia or Alan Gibson at (207) 338-1566 or visit their website: www.gologichomes.com. To track construction and development on The GO Home, visit the prototype blog at: http://www.gologichomes.com/blog/category/prototype/.

What is a Passive House?

Similar to the LEED program, a Passive House (also known as the German “Passivhaus”) meets very strict requirements for building efficiency and performance, specifically regarding insulation values and energy consumption requirements.

More details of these requirements on the Passive House website.