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By kimquirk, on January 8th, 2012  Foaming the storage tank
I can now fully appreciate the benefit and even the necessity of a backup heating system in New England. In 2011 alone there were 3 or 4 storms that caused power outages, but I have been very lucky that they only caused minutes or a few hours of interruptions for me. Many others experienced days without power. On the other hand my solar heating system is in its first year of life and needs some serious debugging, so my back up systems are needed – often!
In this part of the world multiple days without heat in the winter can be life threatening. This, and the potential for frozen pipes, provide ample reason why insurance companies want to know the details of a home’s heating system, and it’s backup, before providing insurance.
…continue reading Backup Systems Required
By bryan, on December 30th, 2011 Sometimes people look at me a little funny when I tell them I work in the field of solar energy in New Hampshire. The reason for these funny looks is because most people simply don’t think that we get a lot of sun in New Hampshire. We actually get more then an adequate amount to make Solar PV a good investment for any New Hampshire home owner.
First, let’s Lets take a look at the the global PV market. The following chart illustrates that as of 2010, Germany has over 7 times the amount of installed solar power then the United States. Please note that GW stands for Gigawatt. …continue reading Solar in New Hampshire? Yes!!
By kimquirk, on December 18th, 2011  Cash
A few weeks ago I wrote about investment planning in today’s economy and how a renewable energy system might be your best investment. This blog is a follow up to provide the numbers to back up that claim.
Let’s start off with an example of a home-owner and his 400kWh/month electric bill. [To put this in perspective, check out your own most recent electric bill - see Electrical Audit for more info].
…continue reading Solar Finances 101
By kimquirk, on December 9th, 2011 That’s the title of the talk I am going to do at the NESEA (Northeast Sustainable Energy Association) conference in Boston in March 2012. The conference, BuildingEnergy 12, will be held at the Seaport World Trade Center in Boston on March 6-8. There are 10 different tracks of workshops on “renewables and high performance buildings”. Check it out. You can get a ton of information at this conferences.
I was very excited to have my presentation selected. All the work we’ve been doing on the renovation of my building has been well documented and I will have a years worth of real data and results by then. I applied to present at this conference last year but my project schedule slipped and my move-in date was too late to get any real feedback as to the performance of the house, so they asked me to re-apply this year.
…continue reading Creating a Zero Net Energy Building in a Historic Shell
By bryan, on November 21st, 2011 Due to the fact that I am a chronic procrastinator I typically find myself doing smaller loads of laundry. When most people are thinking about getting to bed on a Sunday evening I am often just realizing that I don’t have a clean shirt for Monday morning. At this point in time I am too tired to bother with sorting out an entire load, I just want to throw in what I absolutely need to get by.
…continue reading Drying Racks, One Man’s Experience
By kimquirk, on November 4th, 2011  Heat Pump
I’ve had some good discussions on heat pumps with friends, family and customers over the last few months and I wanted to jot down some notes on where I think these systems can save money and energy. Comments are encouraged!
The basic function of a heat pump is to move heat from one point to another. The components include a motor, a condenser and an evaporator. What’s pretty cool is that the same machine with all the same parts can be used to heat a space, and by reversing the flow, it can cool a space.
…continue reading Heat Pumps
By kimquirk, on October 6th, 2011  Solar Electric System I started the Energy Emporium just about 3 years ago and I find I have to devote a good number of hours every month to keeping up with the changes in financial incentives. I know it must be difficult for home-owners or people who are not working in this industry. One of the reasons I started this business, was to be able to provide up-to-date information on products, pricing, permitting and incentives for renewable products.
I guess we shouldn’t be too surprised at gross fluctuations in renewable incentives when we look at the harsh political atmosphere and the poor economy today … we can’t decide if we should be boosting the green industry to help create jobs or shutting down as many federal and state programs as possible to reduce the deficit.
…continue reading Rebates – Get them while you can!
By kimquirk, on September 20th, 2011  Big E The “Big E” is the Eastern States Exposition Fair held in Springfield, MA almost every year since 1917. Last year 1.2 million people attended over the 17 day event.
I went to the “Big E” this year to help one of my vendors at their booth. I had never been before. It was a pretty amazing combination of carnival, circus, main stage entertainment, amusement park rides, fried foods, all sorts of animals from hatching chicks to competition horses. You can pay to see the tiniest horse in the world or the largest pig. You can see the amazing miracle knife, electronic and acoustic pianos, belly dancing coin scarves, sweaters made in Nepal, and udder butter all in one building. And there are about 5 or 6 of these vendor buildings. And you can buy beer or wine from 10 in the morning until 10 at night and walk around with it anywhere on the grounds.
…continue reading The Big E Report
By kimquirk, on August 28th, 2011  Mascoma River
Only a few months back we had a pretty incredible ice storm in which lots of people in the Upper Valley lost power for many days (see “ Backing up the Ice Storm“). Today I am thinking about backup power once again as Hurricane Irene (now Tropical Storm Irene) starts to hit the East Coast.
The point I made in the earlier blog is that backup power from renewable energy sources provides two good services — 1) power when the grid goes down, and 2) a great step towards self-sustainability or independence from fossil fuels.
…continue reading Controlling the Hurricane
By kimquirk, on August 22nd, 2011  Solar PV System
It seems to me that traditional investment planning is getting some serious scrutiny today. Many of us grew up believing that you put money in the bank to make interest, that a home was a really good investment, and that the stock market would always have its ups and downs in the short term, but in the long term it was heading up.
At the same time we are also learning more about what fossil fuels do to our ozone, what a “finite resource” really means, and that we need to be prepared for extreme weather including deadly tornandos, hurricanes, and sunamis.
One solution (and not just mine) — an investment in a renewable energy system for your home. A renewable system can provide some self-sustainability for your family if a local disaster hits; the value of renewable energy will increase over time as governments and economies invest in it; the value of your home will increase if it relies less on fossil fuels.
A solar hot water or electric system today can provide at least a 5%-10% return on your investment. Depending on state rebate program, it can be significantly higher than that.
What is your investment strategy for the new millennium?
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