Start Learning about V2G (vehicle to grid)

The oil needed for transportation is probably the nation's #1 issue right now. The solution is now being fleshed out, and it's simple, elegant and involves your home.

I'll give the executive summary:

1. Forget Hydrogen powered cars.
2. Forget Natural gas powered cars.
3. Forget ethanol powered cars.

Daily driving trips will be done with an electric car that plugs into the grid at home, work or anywhere. Today's grid can already handle this growing demand, but it must become a smarter grid. Digital powerline signals will meter your electricity usage wherever you plug in. The V2G part comes into play during those demand peaks. All the electric cars that are plugged in during those times will be called upon to put electricity back on the grid, thereby avoiding any potential brownouts.

The reason electricity wins is because it is TEN TIMES cheaper than gas per mile driven. Wind electricity is already cheaper than coal, PV electricity promises to be even cheaper than that.

To learn more, google "V2G" The links change daily.

Of course the solution for the long-distance freight industry has been obvious for 150 years. Trains will replace trucks, a perfect reversal of the 20th century. Electric trucks will be developed to distribute the freight on a local basis.

Obvious Need for Smart Metering

Some sort of weird incentive program has been approved by the PUC. From the Denver Post article:

"Under a new incentive plan approved by the commission, Xcel could recover from ratepayers all costs for programs that encourage customers to use energy more efficiently. Xcel also could receive bonuses if it meets certain targets." Is it just me, but isn't this some kind of circular logic? Here's another way to say it, and it's hard to believe the Post can write this with a straight face: "Xcel will recover from ratepayers all costs for programs that encourage ratepayers to use less." Auugghhh!

How about a rate-based incentive program? That's how the rest of our economy works. You are charged the cost of a service plus a profit. The amount of profit is determined by the market price.

Since Xcel is a monopoly, the market price is set by the PUC. Therefore the market price should be the cost plus the 10% profit that Xcel is allowed by law.

The problem is that the rate structure doesn't reflect actual costs.

The smart metering initiative will solve this problem, so incentive programs like this are unnecessary because normal economic laws of the marketplace will naturally encourage conservation and alternative energy.

Home Tour a Huge Success

The turnout for the Wash Park Home Tour was the biggest ever. We weren't allowed to stay around during the tour, so if anyone has further questions about the home, feel free to call Kevin at 720 435-5909

Solar Home on the Wash Park Home Tour

Our personal residence, a "solar Denver Square", built in 2004, is on this year's East Wash Park Home Tour.

This annual event is the biggest fundraiser for Steele Elementary.

Things to look for:
1. High SGHC glass used on the south side.
2. "Poor man's terrazo" diamond-ground and stained concrete floors for thermal mass.
3. Rare indoor swamp cooler that serves as a humidifier in the winter.
4. Infloor radiant heat.
5. On demand hot water.
6. Near-zero exterior maintenance.
7. Low-water landscaping.


MORE DETAILS:

DICKSON RESIDENCE

“The Substation House”

1491 S GAYLORD

2003-2004

Green Features

1. Site is at the south end of the block which allowed unrestricted access to the sun. (little to no shading)

2. Passive Solar : Large window area on the south walls of the house. The interior temperature swings somewhat because of the heat gain from the sun. After a sunny day the living room temperature will be 68, and early in the morning, it will be 64. A room temperature of 65 feels quite comfortable because the house isn’t drafty and the walls and windows are relatively warm compared to older homes.

3. Minimized window area on east, north, and west. On the north, to save heat in winter, on the E & W to reduce heat gain in summer and shoulder seasons. Most of the E & W windows are shaded for the same reason.

4. South window glazing is a special low-e coating with a high solar heat gain coefficient (SHGC) to maximize heat gain in winter. This keeps the space heating cost to $20/month for the main house in the 4 coldest months.

5. Stained concrete floors provide thermal mass to “save up” daytime heat until nighttime. This process is unregulated and occurs naturally and automatically. 2” thick concrete was poured on the first and second floors. The basement slab is 6” to prevent cracking due to somewhat expansive soil. Similarly, the concrete floors help keep the house cool on hot summer afternoons

6. Large window well on the south side provides more heat and light than usually found in a basement.

7. Structural Insulated Panels (SIPs) used for wall and roof construction. SIPs can be described as stressed-skin foam panels. They provide a high R-value and ensure a tight heated envelope (reduced unwanted air leakage). Having a SIP roof and no conventional attic trusses make the attic livable space for very low cost.

8. Unique indoor-mounted evaporative cooler uses 5 times less energy than A/C for summertime cooling. The airflow is reversed thru the cooler in winter, using the HEPA air filter, thereby serving as the humidifier. The indoor location of the evaporative cooler allows easier maintenance. Denver is one of the best places on the continent for evaporative cooling.

9. Medium-high efficiency boiler for the in-floor radiant back-up heat and domestic hot water. The boiler is “direct vent” to eliminate the possibility of CO entering the house. The combustion air is sucked in directly from the outside, and blown outside after combustion. The radiant in-floor heat system was installed by Advanced Hydronics. Because the home uses such little backup space heat, this boiler was the best choice at the time.

10. 3.3 KW photovoltaic system mounted on the garage roof feeds power back on to the grid when it is generating more electricity than the home is using.

11. The pre-existing red brick building was saved and re-purposed as the home office/shop. (It still has poor energy performance, but a brick insulation retrofit experiment is ongoing. This is a city-wide problem needing a solution ASAP.) Side note: this building was originally built in the late 40’s to store a huge bank of lead-acid batteries. These batteries were part of the electrical grid for the Denver Tramway system.

12. The SIP construction allowed the easy finishing of the attic space, providing a very useful 3^rd floor bonus room. (Conventionally built homes have vented attics, which are hot in summer, and cold in winter, and the single largest cause of heat loss and heat gain.) Design flaw #1: Kevin’s experience with finished attics led him to believe that the 3^rd floor wouldn’t need any heat. The assumption was that the heat from below would migrate up. It turned out that the house is comfortable at only 65F, so very little heat migrates up at that low of a temperature, and the third floor needs some heat at times.

13. Exterior below grade basement/foundation insulation. This is a really important detail that is rarely done correctly in new construction. The result is the basement zone stays at 64 degrees in the winter without any heat from the boiler.

14. No wood or gas fireplaces. Although we like the ambiance of fireplaces, any room with a fireplace would overheat quickly in this house.

15. Hot water “D’mand” pump. In each bathroom, the doorbell button summons hot water to the fixtures by turning on a pump for a few seconds. This is much quicker than turning on the faucet or shower and waiting for hot water to reach it. This also saves lots of water. This type of demand system is considered superior to timed recirculation systems that waste heat when hot water isn’t called for in the bathrooms.

16. Note on “passive solar cooling”: In the summer, the large double doors on the third floor can be opened at night along with the basement windows. Although over 1000 cubic feet per minute of air then naturally flows up through the house, it’s still not enough cooling effect for the two hottest months of summer. Denver’s climate has changed enough to generally require active cooling.

17. Low maintenance items:

a. Brick and stucco exterior.

b. 75 year stone coated steel shingles. They are much lighter and more hailproof than solid roof tiles.

c. Minimal painted exterior wood surfaces

d. Concrete floors have no maintenance, only cleaning.

e. Minimal roof penetrations mean fewer future roof leaks, and less air leakage. There is no fake chimney that is still put on most new homes. The joint between a chimney and the roof is the single largest source of roof leaks.

f. Low maintenance landscaping, wood mulch for weed control

18. Low Water Landscaping: Although there is a bluegrass play area, the rest of this large lot uses xeriscaping and a drip system for irrigation. Summertime water usage is usually under 10,000 gallons per month.

Smart Metering Coming to Boulder

In previous posts, I have emphasized the need for "smart meters". In a move that was secret until today, Xcel Energy has announced plans for an even more ambitious program called the "smart grid".

They have chosen Boulder for the pilot program.

Cheap Photovoltaics Mean Easy Zero Energy Homes

Let's see, there are at least two photovoltaic manufacturers in Colorado that promise $1.00/watt thin film PV panels "soon". If you add maybe $4.00/watt for installation, and subtract the rebates, which are at least $4.50/watt, it means your PV investment will be almost free, and it wipes out your electricity bill of $50-$150/month.

By any measure, this is a good investment. Think about it for a minute, and you'll conclude that your new zero energy home should be ALL ELECTRIC. It goes against today's conventional wisdom, but things are changing fast. The reason is simply that there is currently no method for a residential building to make natural gas and put it "back on the grid". In the summer, you'll have excess electricity production, but Xcel pays you retail for it. You can't do that with solar thermal either.

It can also be shown that Zero Energy homes with no solar thermal or natural gas appliances are simpler and cheaper to construct, so it's win-win all around.

Green Politics in Denver

I'm personally not a big fan of traditional green politics, like passing laws that favor evaporative coolers over conventional A/C. (This happened in Denver recently) In most cases, market forces combined with lots of consumer education will produce the best results. "Unintended consequences" often result from poorly thought out laws (just ask Jared Polis). All other things being equal, fewer laws are better than more laws for many reasons. High on that list of reasons is the need for fewer lawyers.

Chris Nevitt, Denver's "greenest" city councilman, however, informed me of an interesting law passed by the city of Berkeley, CA. If you own a home and want to put photovoltaic solar on the roof, find a contractor and get a bid. The city will pay for it, then add the cost to your property tax bill to be paid over time.

With a financing scheme like that, there really aren't any barriers to PV ownership. The yearly savings on your electricity bill is instantly larger than the property tax increase.