The Bar Harbor Times Soup reports on a unique rammed-earth house constructed in Salsbury Cove this summer. ReVision installed the solar electric and solar hot water system on the home which expects to have net-zero electric use due to high solar production in the summertime.

Laurie Schreiber writes:

Retired professors, Turner and Karnaky wanted their second home to be as energy-efficient as possible. Turner said she learned about the rammed earth technique years ago. After considerable research into alternative building methods in general, she said rammed earth emerged as the best choice for the first story. In 2000, the couple approached Sassaman, whose portfolio ranges from detail work to high-end residential construction, additions and renovations. The design was finalized in June 2008 and excavation began that August.

… Minimum energy use is the order of the day, with the use of low-energy appliances, triple-glazed windows, radiant floor heat, and composting toilets. Turner said she expects that the photovoltaic system will generate enough electricity in the summer to sell some back to their grid provider. In the winter, the house will consume electricity to keep the house from freezing, but the energy usage should zero out, she said.

Read more (PDF Download)

Aqua Maine’s new water treatment facility in Rockport uses solar hot water and solar electric systems which will work together to provide over 80,000 kw/hr of energy each year.

The Free Press, today featured our recent project with the Camden and Rockland Division of Aqua Maine.

The new $7.2 million wastewater treatment facility in Mirror Lake in Rockport features both solar electric and solar hot water systems.

The solar systems will work in tandem to provide more than 75% of the needed energy to heat 2,500 gallons of treated lake water to 95° F each day (a feat that requires up to 1,209,300 BTUs in the wintertime!).

According to The Free Press:

The new facility uses more power to push water through the filters, and the microfiltration membranes must be periodically cleaned with heated water. Rick Knowlton, vice president of operations, says, “While the original design of the facility included a large electric heater to warm water for the membrane cleaning process, we knew that this would be a perfect application for a solar thermal system to supplement or reduce the use of the electric heater. Almost 2,500 gallons of warm water will be needed every day, and the solar system being constructed should reduce our purchased electricity by 80,000 kWh every year. It’s one of the larger solar systems installed in Maine.”

Over the first 20 years of its life, the system is expected to save over $210,000 in electric costs. And according to The Free Press, “the power savings have been passed on to the Camden & Rockland Division customers as part of the recent Maine PUC decision on rates.”

Not only will Midcoast Mainers benefit financially from the project, but they can breathe a little easier, too. The solar system will offset roughly 1.27 million pounds of C02 each year, the equivalent of planting over 3,600 trees.

More Photos from Our Commercial Solar Photo Gallery:

For more installations, see our Solar Projects Map

ReVision has commissioned our latest educational solar project – a 15.4kw grid-tied solar electric array installed on Winthrop High School, a system that will offset roughly 28,149lbs. of CO2 emissions annually.

The project, which was funded in large part thanks to an Efficiency Maine Block Grant, will save the school more than $3,000 a year for several decades.

Carl Swanson, a retired electrician and Winthrop Green Committee member who helped oversee the project, said this of the work:

[ReVision has] very knowledgeable, clever, capable workers who seem to know their stuff. Even though they are electricians they have had to learn the intricacies of solar power, which I can see is quite a field all its own. I have developed a great admiration for their work, having watched them work for the past 2 weeks. [This is] a first-rate job that will last many years that we can be proud of.

The system was also featured in the Kennebec Journal and on the Winthrop town website.

As with all educational installations, the system has been outfitted with a data monitoring system so that students can learn how the system works and monitor usage historically and in real-time.

From our Schools and Nonprofits Solar Photo Gallery:

See more installations in our Solar Projects Map

As BP continues to struggle to contain the oil pouring into the Gulf of Mexico, many of us are wondering: how can we help?

We can all take steps to reduce our oil consumption, which we believe is a critical part of the long-term solution to preventing future catastrophes. Reducing our dependence on fossil fuels starts with one person, one household at a time.

Save How You Get There

A humbling 80% of petroleum consumed in the United States goes toward transportation. Time to take a bike!

1. Get Efficient – Trade in your gas guzzler for a smaller, more efficient vehicle. Switching from a light-duty SUV that runs at 20mpg to a 50mpg hybrid will save, in the average household, 450 gallons of gasoline a year.

   Soon, electric cars like the Chevy Volt will be available, providing an option to have a “net-zero” car by offsetting your charge time with grid-tied solar power!

2. Drive Less – Even better than driving more efficiently is to drive less altogether. Consolidate shopping trips. See if your employer is willing to switch to a 4-day work week. Telecommute if possible. Could video-conferencing avoid the need to travel out of town for a business meeting?
3. Alternative Commuting – Consider non-motorized options when you do need to get out of the house.  Biking is one of the healthiest things you can do, for yourself and for the environment. Walk. Use public transport if it is available.

Save What You Consume

4. Buy less – Avoid products with excessive plastic packaging – and recycle what you do buy. Bring your own shopping bags and lobby stores you buy from to use biodegradable plastics derived from plant matter. Many of the businesses in the Green Alliance have already made this switch.
5. Buy local – It’s a simple equation: the fewer miles a product has to travel, the fewer gallons of oil burned to bring it to your table. And there are myriad other benefits – see the Portland Buy Local campaign and the Seacoast Local campaign for ideas and inspiration.
6. Buy organic – According to the Sustainable Table, “As much as forty percent of energy used in the food system goes towards the production of artificial fertilizers and pesticides.” Organic food avoids petroleum-derived pesticides and other chemicals, which have adverse environmental effects of their own. MOFGA has a great resource list of local food retailers, farms, and CSAs. In New Hampshire, try the NH Farmer’s Market Association.

Save on Energy

7. Plug the holes – Much of the old housing stock in Maine and New Hampshire is literally losing heat out the window. You can start down the road of weatherization with a professional energy audit, and take advantage of great incentives.  This year, instead of cleaning your boiler, have it optimized to burn less fuel.
8. Save the juice -  Many homes are “leaking” electricity as well as heat, simply by leaving gadgets or other appliances plugged in when they don’t have to be, or running them at non-optimal times.  You can test this theory with a Kill-A-Watt meter, which will help you identify which appliances are using a lot of electricity (you might be surprised how many gadgets use electricity even while they’re “off”).

   For more robust electric use monitoring we recommend installing a TED (The Energy Detective), which provides tracking and graphs of electric use over time. Once you’ve optimized your consumption, off-set the rest with grid-tied solar power!

9. Heat smarter – A properly sized solar hot water system in Maine or New Hampshire can save 300 gallons of oil per year. Want to go even further? Rip out your oil boiler and replace it with a clean-burning wood or pellet boiler, or with a condensing gas boiler.

Everyone can do something to reduce our perilous dependence on oil. Take whatever step you can today and plan for the next step when able.

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.

As they prepared for a move into a new home in Exeter, Eric and Cammie Savage considered a lifetime of energy costs associated with a home in New Hampshire’s climate.

A typical oil boiler needs 200 – 300 gallons of heating oil just to make hot water all summer.

As a result, it sends about 6,200 pounds of CO2 into the atmosphere, and between $600 to $1000 out the window. Typical electrical bills account for another $1500 and 10,000 pounds of CO2 annually.

The Savages asked ReVision Energy to collaborate with their construction team, including local green builder Chinburg Builders to integrate both solar hot water (SHW) and solar photovoltaic (PV) systems into the project. The closed-loop solar hot water heater is actually backed up by an electric element, which benefits from the energy generated by the solar electric. In the summer months, the 3.0 kilowatt PV array will produce enough electricity to send a surplus back into the utility grid for a net metering credit.

State and federal incentives for renewable energy contributed roughly 49% of the costs of the systems.

“The bottom line is, even without incentives, the solar hot water and PV systems cost less in the long-run (about 15 years) than using fossil-based energy” says NH Branch manager and technician Will Kessler, “It’s a pretty simple and environmentally sound decision.”

ReVision Energy wishes the Savages well in their new home!

While oil continues to gush into the Gulf of Mexico, in Maine levels of sunshine have hit epic proportions. We observe reactions by local residents of the phenomenon, and explore ways this solar spill could be put towards good use!

Photos of some folks who are putting this solar gusher to work:

A little over a month ago, WABI (CBS affiliate in Bangor, Maine) featured a story on The Weatherbee School in Hampden, Maine, where a group of students dubbed the “Green Team” helped win the grant from the Earth Day Network to install a 2.3kw solar electric system on the roof of the school.

Here’s WABI’s coverage of the student green group:

Installation of the system was completed just last week, and the system has enjoyed beautiful sunshine since!

This solar electric array will offset an estimate 2,1000 lbs of C02 emissions each year. The system offers data monitoring so that Weatherbee School’s Green Team can observe how weather affects performance.