Here at Boots on the Roof we are proud to announce we have integrated the revolutionary InstaRack from Sollega into our one of a kind commercial solar class. The new technology will be taught as part of our PV 270 – Commercial Solar PV Construction – course which is designed to help you master the building of solar photovoltaic systems.

The InstaRack is designed for flat commercial roofs. For these roofs solar power panels will not be as effective because they will not be able to angle correctly towards the sun. However, the InstaRack is designed to change this. It serves as a lift for the solar panels directing them towards the sun. Made from 35% recycled products, the InstaRack, is a highly durable product that is non-conductive and resistant to ultraviolet light. This makes it the perfect solar panel roof rack while maintaining the high green standards of good solar panels.

Through the unique approach we take with the PV 270 megalab, which emphasizes 80% hands on training, we will be able to fully explain, explore, and teach the uses and benefits of the lightweight and easy to install InstaRack. By integrating the InstaRack into our teaching we are pushing forward and proving our continued commitment to teaching the latest in solar innovations and trends.

However, the addition of the InstaRack to our class curriculum is not the only reason for this blog. We just want everyone to know how extremely excited we are about the solar innovations which are making news on an almost daily basis. The InstaRack and products like it are making solar easy and cost efficient. Solar Power is now cheaper and more viable than non-renewable energy sources. We are doing everything we can to cover this development and other major ones as they come about, and incorporating those we deem crucial into our curriculum.

Stay tuned because solar power the future.

Sollega’s InstaRack Now Taught at Boots on the Roof is a post from: Boots On The Roof

Solar power is normally thought of as coming through black panels that absorb the energy of the sun and convert it into power for our homes. However, as amazing as these panels are we are often at a loss of where to place new ones. On our roofs is the obvious solution, but where else? Deserts? Abandoned Hillsides? Panels are great, the energy they provide is clean, as long as the panel is made from clean materials, but the amount of energy they generate is not always significant.

So, what other solar technologies can be combined with panels to ensure a more steady supply of soar power? The answer is a solar tower. The EnviroMission, an Australian energy firm, technology is going to revolutionize the solar power industry. Their new solar tower design can generate enough electricity to power around 150,000 homes from one tower.

The technology, according to SmartPlanet, relies on three basic scientific principles:

1. Greenhouse effect. At the base of the tower is a canopy comprised of glass panels, which air as it’s continually being heated by the sun’s rays. Think of it as a sprawling greenhouse where the temperature can get as high as 90 degrees Celsius.

2. Chimney effect. As a general rule of thumb, heat floats upwards due to the differences in air density between hot and cold air, a phenomenon known as convection. The greater this difference is, the greater the force of buoyancy. In this case, the temperature drops one degree for every 100 meters of elevation. Translation: Air differential within a 2,625-feet high tunnel is a lot of force.

3. Wind Power. As air pressure is sucked through the hollowed tower, it drives an array of 32 wind turbines installed inside the tower, hence producing energy.

Once generated, this solar power feeds into the grid, powering homes and electric cars. Best of all, the tower gives off no waste product and really only requires sun.

However, not everything is as perfect as it might seem. The 2,625 feet high tower still takes a lot of room to build and each one costs around $750 million. But, in a country like the United States which does not suffer from a poverty of land this should be no problem. In fact the first of these solar towers is already planned to rise above the fields of Arizona, if everything goes as planned.

Another solar tower is being erected in Mongolia with others planned throughout Asia. If these solar towers prove to be a success we may have found a highly efficient and ethical source of solar power.

The EnviroMission Solar Tower is a Remarkable Idea is a post from: Boots On The Roof

I love covering the cool stuff on Fridays.

Green sources out of Tampa, FL report that a “consortium” of more than 50 students and instructors from half a dozen departments representing four different Florida colleges, have been working on a project for the U.S. Solar Decathlon. Sponsored by the Department of Energy, and taking place this fall in Washington D.C., entrants are charged with constructing the world’s most energy efficient house.

People think “solar energy is sort of pie in the sky,” said Rebecca Hagen, a USF communications instructor working with the project. They say, “We can’t do it, we can’t afford it, that’s for somebody else, that’s for the tree huggers,’” she said. “What we’re trying to show very hard is that we can do this, it’s affordable, it’s doable, it can be done today.”

Team members representing the University of South Florida, the University of Florida, Florida State University and the University of Central Florida are encouraged to incorporate every conceivable energy savings technique into their buildings. Plus, they must be able to dismantle the house, load it, transport it, and rebuild it on-site in D.C.

Team Florida’s entry has been dubbed FLeX House. It includes the latest in renewable energy technology and the simple cooling techniques Floridians used decades ago, before air conditioning. According to USF assistant professor and faculty advisor, Stanley Russell, if all cylinders are clicking as they should the home will generate as much energy as it uses, while still remaining “very user-friendly.”

“It will be affordable, easy to build and easy to expand” as a family grows, said Russell.

Designed specifically for Florida living, FLeX House will be a single-story rectangular-shaped house with walls consisting mostly of sliding glass doors that can be opened to let the air flow through the house on mild days. The outside walls will be made of corrugated metal, but over them will be an “umbrella” of cypress wood louvers, creating an extra layer of shade.

The roof will be equipped with solar panels (surprised?) which will be used to heat the water and provide juice to the house. The heat from the water will in turn be used to heat the home. The designers are also using something called liquid desiccant, a substance that pulls humidity from the air, will run through a duct system to make the air drier and easier to cool.

Team Florida and FLeX House will be judged on its efficiency, market appeal, appliances and home entertainment features.

Russell says that the idea is to create a home that works, where people actually live. ”We could build these in factories and ship them anywhere,” he said.

Sources:

Tampa Bay Online

Solar Energy – It’s Not Just for Tree Huggers is a post from: Boots On The Roof

The home improvement folks at Lowes have joined forces with Big Brother, and California-based solar leasing firm, Sungevity to provide customers with their very own personalized solar panel installation estimate at the touch of a button.

Why Big Brother? Because said estimate would be produced from a kiosk equipped with Sugevity’s iQuote system, a web-based application that combines aerial and satellite imagery to hone in on your home’s rooftop.

The would-be solar buyer simply plugs in his address and iQuote will assess the geometry of his rooftop, its disposition to the sun at different times of day and yea, and any potential occlusions presented by nearby vegetation or built objects, and spit out a “firm installation estimate within 24-hours.”

Customers can also receive a “visual rendering” of what their home will look like with said solar panels installed.  You can even get an estimate of your potential energy savings if you’re willing to provide information concerning past energy usage.

Pretty cool, huh?

iQuote founder, Danny Kennedy, indicates that about 25,000 users have tried out the system. On the down side, only about 1,500 of those solar tire kickers have actually taken the solar plunge.

So if it can be done online, why partner with Lowes? According to Kennedy, Sungevity is a “petite player” in the solar sales market, competing with such biggies as San Mateo’s SolarCity and San Francisco-based SunRun. The Lowe’s connection will allow Sungevity to significantly expand its reach.

“This will help us to get in front of thousands more customers, in front of middle America,” said Kennedy.”We’ll be taking it to the ‘burbs, as it were.”

The industry talk is that 2011 will be a good year for solar. Framingham, Massachusetts based research firm, IDC Energy Insights, predicts that North America will see two gigawatts of solar power installations this year. California, along with several other states, has some attractive renewable energy incentives available. The Sungevity/Lowes kiosks will be available in all incentive available states.

“Obviously, we’re obsessed with being customer-focused,” said Kennedy. “We hope that this deal will make going solar as easy as shopping for light bulbs.”

Well, Danny, I’ll let you know. I just did my own iQuote and am anxiously waiting to see how much I can’t afford to spend on a rooftop solar system.

Sources:

Huffington Post

Home Solar Estimates at the Touch of a Button is a post from: Boots On The Roof

A definite addition to the cool stuff category; green sources report that the folks at Cooler Planet have produced an “infographic” displaying ten well-known business that are running their operations on 100% renewable energy.

The companies, ranging from retail to non-profit, are able to sell their excess energy back to the utility companies. This allows said utilities to reduce the amount of energy they produce from dirty sources: coal, gas, what have you.

According to Cooler Planet, they created the infographic to highlight companies that are “leading corporate America in environmental sustainability.”

So who are these industry heroes of clean energy?

Whole Foods and Kohl’s represent the retail end of the spectrum. Kohl’s has 107 solar power systems activated in California, Oregon, Colorado, Wisconsin, Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland and Pennsylvania.  The company has a 20-year power purchase agreement with SunEdison. On Kohl’s corporate website it says:

“As the largest single host of solar electricity production in North America, our move will generate 25 megawatts of electricity in California alone when complete. This is greater than the electricity generation of the five largest photovoltaic systems in the U.S. combined and is equivalent to the electricity used by 3,087 California homes. It will offset more than 28 million pounds of carbon dioxide in the first year – the equivalent of taking 2,500 cars off the road.”

Like Kohl’s, Whole Foods also obtains energy credits from both wind and solar power, enough to offset 100% of their energy use in all their stores.

Usually when you think about banks a different green vision comes to mind: money. But three banks actually made the 100 percent renewable list: TD, HSBC, and Deutsche Bank

Of course the Environmental Protection Agency made the list. They’d have a lot of explaining to do had they not.

Paper producer, Mohawk also made the list. Their website states:

“Mohawk currently procures wind power from two renewable energy market leaders, 3Degrees and Sterling Planet. Mohawk purchases renewable energy credits (RECs) from these two companies that equal 100 million kilowatt hours. The emission reduction benefits of this power are equal to 138 million miles NOT driven by passenger cars in one year, or planting a 24,400 acre forest.”

Other green heroes include food & beverage giant, Dannon, consulting firm Pearson and The World Bank, the Washington DC based non-profit.

Sources:

Forbes

Kohl’s

Mohawk

Corporate America’s Green Heroes: Operating on 100% Renewable Energy is a post from: Boots On The Roof

A dollop of the cool stuff for your Friday; my green sources have seen the future of pollution-free travel, and it is the Solar Impulse, a solar-powered plane which just made its  first international flight today when it flew from Switzerland to Brussels.

The Solar Impulse, a one-seater, four-engine prototype powered by 12,000 solar cells, flew from an airfield in Payerne in Western Switzerland to Brussels in 13 hours.  

“The objective is to demonstrate what we can do with existing technology in terms of renewable energy and energy savings,” said project co-founder and pilot Andre Borschberg.  ”It is symbolic to be able to go from one place to another using solar energy,” he said.

The Solar Impulse project began back in 2003 with a 10-year budget of 90 million Euros ($128 million). The Impulse embarked on its first flight in April 2010 and completed a 26-hour flight, a record flying time for a solar powered aircraft, three months later. It has an average air speed of about 45 MPH, so it would not appear that your Uniteds and Southwests have much to worry about yet. That is unless travellers don’t mind taking several weeks to get where they’re going.

Last year, it completed a 26-hour non-stop flight that proved the plane can stay aloft at night from the solar energy its 12,000 solar cells soaked up during the day.

“We always hoped (The Solar Impulse) would become an ambassador for renewable energy,” said Impulse team member, Bertrand Piccard. “In the 20th century, every step of aviation was a historic one (and now) Solar Impulse is also making history.”

The flight of the Impulse has not been without its challenges. One of those challenges was trying to fit a 44 mph flying plane into the commercial air traffic system. Can pilots do what slow moving cars do, stick their arm out the window and wave other planes forward?

Weather was also a concern to the pilots.

“For the last month, my biggest nightmare was … that the plane would not arrive due to technical problems or due to weather problems,” said Piccard.

While today’s was the Impulse’s fifth flight, this was the first time it left Switzerland.

The Impulse is scheduled to fly to, and appear at, the Paris air show next month. Also, there are plans for an around-the-world flight with a somewhat larger model in 2013.

Sources:

Reuters
AP

Solar Airplane – The Future of Pollution-free Travel is a post from: Boots On The Roof

Here’s a little something for the cool stuff category; technology that can catalog the solar power potential of every rooftop in the world. David Levine and his company, Geostellar, are hoping to do just that.

Levine came up with the idea while working for an outfit called Lanworth, which predicts crop yields with satellite imagery. A Lanworth customer executive mused aloud how he’d like to be able to better control his company’s energy usage, and that’s when the proverbial lightning bolt struck Levine.

“The light went off immediately,” he said.

Levine gave notice at Lanworth and six months later Geostellar was born, with all the rooftops of the world spread out before them.  As solar equipment becomes more affordable, a land grab for rooftop real estate is heating up. Prospectors, such as SolarCity and Sungevity, guarantee building owners low electrical costs for the right to install panels and sell excess power back to the grid. Big utilities like AES, Next Era, Constellation Energy and Duke Energy can use the data, too, for prospecting commercial-scale solar sites.

Geostellar’s software is able to calculate a particular location’s solar potential by using LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) technology, something that used to be accomplished manually, using a tape measure, a level, and a GPS unit.  Users are able to enter an address or sort by neighborhoods for roofs based on size and energy potential. The LIDAR technology uses lasers and infrared lights form low-flying airplanes. LIDAR then maps three-dimensional structures, which allows Geostellar to create a virtual world of shadows, slopes and solar hot spots.

Large customers are paying as much as $250,000 for an annual subscription to Geostellar’s national maps and data. Regional access will only run you about $25,000 per year.

Levine, a former rocker with a group called Senator Flux, earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Yale. While on the road with Senator Flux, Levine earned extra dough editing economics books for the World Bank. This led to teaching himself programming when the World Bank asked him to assist in publishing the material on what was then a blossoming new technology – the Internet.

One project led to another and eventually to Geostellar. Today, Levine has $1.5 million in equity funding, some great programmers, and a definite cool idea.

Sources:

Forbes

How Much Rooftop Solar Potential Do You Have? Just Ask Geostellar is a post from: Boots On The Roof

“Jeeves5000?”

“Sir?”

“Please shake up a fresh pitcher of martinis, after which, please go stand in the sunlight and recharge your skin.”

“Very good, Sir.”

The latest entry in the cool stuff category is a solar-powered, super-sensitive, chemical-sampling, super-intelligent skin designed by Stanford researcher, Zhenan Bao.

You know, I’ve been hearing about this whole “personal robot future” since I was a kid. I’m tired of waiting. I want my robot!

OK, tantrum over.

Green sources report that the super-skin centers on a stretchable solar cell system that can expand and shrink along two different axes. Given those qualities, said skin can be incorporated into prosthetic limbs, clothing or even artificial skin for Mr. Jeeves5000.

OK, hold your brains in place, because here comes the techie portion of our post. What Bao’s produced here is a highly flexible and durable material, which is part of a flexible organic-chemistry transistor, built on a thin polymer layer. When the skin is subjected to pressure, the current flowing through the transistors is modified as tiny pyramid shapes molded into the polymer layer compress, resulting in a super-sensitive transducer that can apparently detect the pressure from a house-fly’s feet. By modifying the transistor with a biological coating, it’s even been possible to make the “super skin,” detect the presence of particular chemicals or biological molecules.

And here I can’t even put up a shelf properly.

So the skin can apparently be stretched – up to 30% larger than its original size – which will allow it to be used over joints like elbows and knees. As previously stated, the skin is able to absorb solar energy, which in-turn will run its sensors. In the very near, robotic future, said skin will allow our future android co-workers, house servants, and possibly one’s future “mate” (The Yes on 8 folks will have a field day with that one), to continually absorb the sun’s power, the touch-sensitivity of humans, and chemical senses not seen since C3PO programmed his first binary load lifter.

But short of having your own personal I-Robot-like, Sonny, where else might we use this super-skin? The experts say the solar-powered skin could be used to coat cars and military vehicles, or even military uniforms, acting as both bio-sensors and solar power generators.

Let’s not forget about the ability to sense the perfect temperature of a martini.

Sources:

Fast Company

I Want my Jeeves-5000 is a post from: Boots On The Roof

So far as I know, there’s nothing in the renewable energy handbook that says solar panels need to have an industrial, banausic look about them. Apparently the good folks behind the Land Art Generator Initiative feel the same way, hence the contest they held to create public art installations that double as full-scale clean energy generators.

My green sources recently announced that Robert Flottemesch, a senior engineer at Hudson Valley Clean Energy, in New York, and an artist works with renewable energy as his medium, took first place for his team’s “Lunar Cubit” design.

Lunar Cubit consists of a large central pyramid surrounded by eight smaller ones that all collect solar energy during the day and illuminate themselves at night in combinations corresponding to the cycles of the moon.

Flottemesch and his team envision Lunar Cubit as a landmark — situated just outside the world’s first “zero-carbon” metropolis, Masdar City in the United Arab Emirates — as recognizable as Big Ben or the Empire State Building.

As Bill Cosby said, “What’s a cubit?”

A cubit is an ancient form of measurement, its length being equal to about 46 centimeters. The idea behind the Lunar Cubit is that its pyramids will be built to scale to match the ones in Giza, Egypt. Yes, those pyramids.

Reports state that, if this in fact becomes a reality, the outer, frameless solar panels on the pyramids’ edges will be made from glass and amorphous silica, giving them an appearance of highly polished onyx. Underground cables transport the energy to a grid, where it is converted to AC power that will be used in thousands of surrounding homes — each of the eight outer pyramids alone will generate 1.74 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 250 houses.

And here’s an interesting little lunar nugget; the Lunar Cubit illuminates inversely with the phases of the moon; so during the new moon, the cubit is going full-tilt boogie – all lights a-blazin’, while during the full moon phase, the cubit is dark.

 An outer layer on each of the eight surrounding pyramids selectively blocks out portions of the structures throughout the month, keeping track of the lunar cycle like hands on a clock.

Sources:

MSNBC

Lunar Cubit Wins LAGI Design Competition is a post from: Boots On The Roof

“You’re my wife and I love you very much but, you’re living in a land of make believe, with elves and fairies and little frogs with funny green hats.” – Homer Simpson.

In the land of which Homer speaks, Mr. Jones works at the Future Planet space station. Each day Mr. Jones must manipulate the bright red energy stones necessary to power the space station’s solar panel. After a hard day at work Mr. Jones drives home in his hydroelectric-powered car, parks in his driveway and admires his personal wind turbine and his rainwater catchers. Are his neighbors green with envy? Of course not! They are green with happiness for Mr. Jones and his wind turbine, because they too have personal wind turbines in their yards and hydroelectric-powered cars in their garages. No one complains about the noise from the turbines, or how they’re blight the landscape of Gumdrop Hills.

Perhaps one day we too will live in bucolic Gumdrop Hills, but in the meantime perhaps our children can imagine this world while playing with some of the cool, new green toys recently on display at the Nuremberg toy fair.

My green sources report that the fine männer und frauen of Germany are at the vanguard of environmentally friendly toy creation. One of the hot items is the aforementioned Future Planet space station that runs on a solar panel, providing the player remembers to use the power stones that supply power to the renewable energy run station.

Manufactures hope that “Future Planet,” and similar green energy toys, will create an awareness in children about the important role renewable energy plays in the earth’s future, both economically from a preservation standpoint.

“Energy is the question of the future and we are definitely thinking about this as we move ahead,” said Judith Schweinitz, a spokeswoman for Playmobil, maker of the solar panel-fitted space station. “It is increasingly being brought into our play concept.”

While green toys only make up a small part of the more than $80 billion toy market, green experts predict that their popularity will continue to grow, amounting to about $1 billion in market share by 2016.

Many eco-friendly parents have already boarded the green bus. Stacy Lu of Allendale, New Jersey, is drawn to toys that make kids think about the planet’s future.

“In my mind, just knowing that there are alternatives to energy sources that involve environmentally disastrous digging and drilling is important,” said Lu.

Unfortunately for consumers, going green sometimes means spending a little more green. For Wild Toys purely organic plush animals (the cotton for the stuffing is even grown with organic fertilizers), you’re talking about 25% more than a comparable non-organic stuffed critter.

Said Wild Toys spokesman, Valdemar Barde of his companies organic offerings,

“They are still sitting in our warehouse. We are still in that phase on toys that consumers say, ‘Yes, we want to be green, but no, we don’t want to pay for it.”

On the other hand, Green Toys, Inc. Of San Francisco has seen an 80% growth in sales since it began marketing toys made from recycled milk jugs in 2008.

“I think that the success of our company shows that there is clearly a wide segment of the population that will pay a little more for environmentally friendly toys,” said Green Toys co-founder, Robert von Goeben. And what with the recent cadmium scares in China, safety concerns are another great reason to go green.

“No longer can we have this anonymous plastic thing from someplace and give it to the child,” said von Goeben. “Parents are smart and they want information about what’s in the product. That’s what’s really driving the market.”

Sources:

BlueRidgeNow.com

Green Toys Growing in Popularity and Market Share is a post from: Boots On The Roof