Annual GLREA Membership Meeting will be held on Dec. 5, 12:00-5:00 at Pietro’s in Grand Rapids. The annual meeting includes lunch, updates on GLREA activities and state legislation, annual awards, and election of new board members. The keynote speaker will be John DeAngelis, Leader in Global Sustainability Initiatives at Steelcase. Register at www.glrea.org. There will be a silent auction. If you have any items to donate, please contact Mary McGraw at cbsmary@gmail.com.
The October 3 Solar Home Tour was held in 7 communities this year and reached 122 persons interested in solar energy and energy efficiency. In addition, media coverage allowed us to reach a much larger audience.
Member Highlight
Country Air & Solar Energy LLC was started in 2012 as a small family business in Charlotte. Owner Steven Potter, a licensed residential builder, is currently serving the Tri-County area. Primarily the business goal was to educate the public by having free local seminars on solar panels for residential use, benefits of ground mounted systems and net metering. Utility applications made include Consumers Energy, Tri County Electric Co-Op, and Lansing Board of Water & Light. A dealer for Patriot Solar Group of Albion and McNaughton-McKay of Ann Arbor. Michigan businesses and American made products are an important to customers who are investing in solar for their homes. At Country Air & Solar Energy, the main goal is to provide full service and complete satisfaction during sales and installation. Contact Steve Potter at (517) 231-4134.
Michigan News
Lansing Board of Water & Light (BWL), City of East Lansing and City of Lansing have announced they will build two community solar parks in BWL’s service territory, one at Burcham Park in E. Lansing and another adjacent to the BWL’s Wise Road Water Treatment Plant in Lansing. Both parks are slated to produce up to 300 kW’s each, 1,000 300-watt solar panels at each location. In the photo above, John Kinch speaks at the Burcham Park announcement. You can pre-register at www.micommunitysolar.org.
University of Michigan has one of the 30 solar race cars that will participate in the World Solar Challenge, an epic 1,800-mile race across Australia. Michigan is a top-tier solar racing team and a veteran of this race, but with five 3rd place finishes, it wants the title. The team has tapped IBM and its new weather forecasting tool to determine exactly when and where the team can optimize its performance, using technology that solar power plants can use to predict and manage production. More details.
2015 MPSC Report on Energy Optimization Programs indicates the EO program expenditures of $1.1 billion from 2010 to 2014 are estimated to achieve lifetime savings for all customers of $4.2 billion. More details.
When Solar Power World presented the 2015 Top 500 Solar Contractors List, CBS Solar was on the list. CBS Solar has been designing and installing residential and commercial projects in Northern Michigan since 1995. Commercial projects such as Dark Horse Brewing, Shorts Brewing, Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indian Medicine Lodge and Cherryland Electric Solar Garden as well as many agricultural projects have been completed over the past couple years. One unique aspect of CBS Solar is the manufacturing of solar panels in Copemish, MI. www.cbssolar.com
MPSC has started a proceeding to examine what a public utility may be obligated to pay to generators known as “Qualifying Facilities (QFs)” under the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA) of 1978. Consumers Energy has 33 PURPA contracts, the first of which expires at the end of the year; DTE Energy has 12 such contracts, the first of which is set to expire in 2023. The current method Michigan uses to determine an avoided cost rate has been in place since the early 1980s. MPSC will form a technical advisory committee to do an assessment and report findings and recommendations by April 8, 2016. Further information on U-17973 at http://efile.mpsc.state.mi.us/efile/
Consumers Energy officials and local dignitaries broke ground on Consumer’s first Solar Garden near the campus of Grand Valley State University on Oct. 2. Consumer’s first Solar Garden will be 3 MW on a 17-acre site and is expected to be completed by the spring of 2016. www.consumersenergy.com/solargardens. Consumers Energy has opened their Solar Gardens program for customer enrollment. You can Enroll here.
Green Home Institute recently partnered with MSU to perform a Post-Occupancy Evaluation of 235 LEED-certified homes in the Midwest. The findings show most residents were satisfied with their LEED-certified home and most participants had electricity and natural gas bills that were 30-50% lower. More details.
Indiana Michigan Power marked the ceremonial start of a $7 million solar farm in eastern St. Joseph County. The solar farm, on a 20 acre site just north of the AM General plant, is one of three such farms the utility plans in its service territory. The St. Joe facility will have nearly 29,000 solar panels and a capacity of 2.6 MW. More details.
A Wind Vision for New Growth in Michigan report from American Wind Energy Assoc. and Wind Energy Foundation indicates that wind can supply electricity for over 710,000 homes in Michigan, provide over $11.6 million in added annual property tax revenue, and an additional $7.6 million in annual land lease payments by 2030. The report indicates that up to 4,000 jobs are supported by wind power today in Michigan, including manufacturing jobs at 33 factories producing parts and supplies. More details.
General Motors and DTE Energy are building an 800 kW solar array at the automaker’s Warren Transmission plant. It will be the largest such facility for the Detroit automaker in Michigan. DTE will own the array and lease 4.25 acres from GM. GM has a total of 46 MW of solar power at 19 facilities worldwide. More details.
Rich VanderVeen and Renae Hesselink are two green business leaders who are being inducted into the newly created West Michigan Sustainable Business Hall of Fame. Rich is the developer behind Michigan’s first commercial wind farm in Mackinac City and the state’s largest wind farm, a 133 turbine development in Gratiot County. Renae Hesselink is a founding member of the U.S. Green Building Council West Michigan chapter and current chairwoman of the chapter’s Green School Advocacy committee. More details.
Beyond Michigan
Austin City Council has approved the city’s largest solar power contract ever, giving Austin Energy the green light to secure up to 300 MW of solar power at a cost of about $33 million a year for 25 years, less than 4 cents/kWh. More details.
New California Legislation, SB 350, will require half of electricity to come from renewable sources by 2030. At the same time, the state will need to double energy efficiency in homes, offices and factories. A third goal, cutting gasoline use in half, was removed from the bill amid stiff opposition from oil companies. More details.
Ice Energy has been combining its thermal energy-storing rooftop air conditioners with rooftop solar systems. The goal to determine if the Ice Bear storage units can stand in as an alternative to battery-backed solar for tasks such as demand-charge management, load shifting, peak demand reduction, and providing extra capacity. The company has launched “Solar+Ice”, long-term power-purchase agreements with utilities for combined solar-storage systems. Ice Energy has already deployed about 1,000 of its Ice Bear units for utility clients across California, each capable of “storing” about 10 kW of energy per day. More details
Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) has had a long-running solar-storage pilot project to determine the value of stored solar energy for critical peaks. SMUC has been working with Sunverge to align the operation of 34battery and PV-equipped homes with its needs to shave peak demand in late summer afternoons. SMUD is using critical peak pricing as its lever. For the past two summers, Sunverge has been making some battery-solar home systems available to respond to critical peak prices, to see how stored solar can defer peaks. Customers were able to significantly lower their demand profile, and even inject energy into the grid, on nine separate critical peak pricing days during June-Sept of this year. More details.
Events
PACE Economic Development training will be held in Hancock on Nov. 2 and Marquette on Nov. 3. Training for local government officials and economic development professionals will show how a community can maximize the benefits of Property Assessed Clean Energy financing. For more, MLarson@michiganenergyoptions.org.
Michigan Energy Forum – Case Studies & Available Incentives for Commercial Enregy Retrofits will be held on Nov. 12 at 5:00 pm at Ann Arbor SPARK Central. Register here.
PV & EV Together presentation will be on Nov. 19, 6:00-7:00 pm at Michigan Energy Options in East Lansing. Dave Konkle, former Energy Coordinator for the City of Ann Arbor, will discuss his photovoltaic and electric vehicle charging systems. Learn how it all works together. There will be a networking hour from 5:00-6:00 pm.
Annual GLREA Membership Meeting will be held on Dec. 5, 12:00-5:00 at Pietro’s in Grand Rapids. The annual meeting includes lunch, keynote, updates on GLREA activities and state legislation, annual awards, and election of new board members. Register at www.glrea.org.
Lean & Green Michigan Contractor Training will be held on Dec. 8, 8:00 AM to 12:00 N at the Genesee County Administration Building. Attendees will receive manual with all the information needed to use PACE financing, USB drive with electronic copies of the training materials, breakfast, and an overview of Michigan Saves. Register
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SOURCE: GLREA
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