This past weekend I embarked on a tour of solar homes in the Washington, DC area, which lets you see how real people use trend-setting environmental technology. The tour’s most prominent feature is the solar panels that peek from atop a variety of houses. Other environmentally friendly features on display include rain gardens, rain barrels, green roofs, solar water heaters, and orientations to enhance natural sunlight and allow air circulation patterns to lower energy costs.
Armed with my (relatively) snazzy new digital camera, I embarked on the tour, using metro and bicycle to reach a variety of destinations. Unfortunately I hadn’t realized that my snazzy new camera ate up memory much faster than my humble old camera, and I wasn’t able to take all of the shots I would have wanted. The ones below, however, will give you an idea of the houses and their features. It’s the next best thing to being on the tour itself! Okay, maybe it’s a poor second, but it takes far, far less of a time commitment.
Look carefully and you’ll notice the solar panels in this Washington, DC house on the border with Chevy Chase, Maryland.
A group tours the above home, which includes photovoltaic panels, passive solar features, natural and efficient lights, and environmentally friendly landscaping. The cistern pictured here captures rain and uses it for watering the garden.
The house interior allows natural air circulation to moderate temperature and cut down on energy bills.
Look up to see the solar panels on this house. . .
. . . if you go down, into the basement, you’ll see the panel for the inverter and charge controller that allow the solar power to function. The box on the lower right contains storage batteries, an item not needed for solar houses on the electricity grid. Should an emergency knock power out for several days, however, the house could continue to function, although with reduced power.
A stately Bethesda home equipped with photovoltaic panels . . .
. . . as well as a solar collectors for heating the family’s water. Let’s hope that they don’t aim too high when shooting baskets, or they’ll hit the wrong kind of glass.
These south-facing windows at the Sidwell Friends School are calibrated to enhance light without bringing in heat. This is the only elementary school in the U.S. with a certified LEED platinum environmental rating. Its copious features include solar chimneys, a green roof, and a constructed wetland. My camera was out of storage space and I missed out on many photo ops, including a gorgeous shot of the green roof.
For more on the school’s environmental features, see this article from AIArchitecture.
This solar cooker hasn’t proven very useful for the family that owns it. It requires a strong sun and is far slower than a conventional oven. However in poor countries where the women must gather fuel to cook, such ovens can prove invaluable.
For more info on the tour, see http://www.solartour.org/.
Note: For those of you interested in the non-Gather activities of a fellow Gatherite I have an announcement. I have designed a boardgame, AmuseAmaze, that’s just been published by HL Games. Find out more about it at: http://www.hlgames.com/aaoverview.html.
Ethan Goffman, Politics and Environment Correspondent
Ethan’s column, Environmental Connections, published twice each month to Gather Essentials: Politics, is a discussion of environmental matters from local to global, covering transportation, smart growth, environmental justice, green buildings, climate change, energy independence and other topics.
Ethan is a writer and editor based near Washington, DC
Keep up with Ethan’s other postings and Gather activity by joining his Gather network -- just click here http://www.egoffman.gather.com/ and select the orange “Connect” button on the left-hand side of the page.
You’ll find Ethan and other Politics Correspondents, plus celebrity content and plenty of other Politics experts at Politics.gather.com.
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Comments: 19
Last day to read and rate my entry:
A Scandalous Overture
I did an article referring to Solar power, and got few responses in regard to locating the folks who provide the equipment, panels and the like.
I plan to go solar as soon as I can figure out how much I can build on my own, rather than paying a company for the labor.
Can you lead me in a goo direction for the info?
The 'web' has not led me to my intended sources.
A very timely and well illustrated article, thanks!
Your tour also has a subtler point. Tomorrow is here, and too many of us still live in yesterday. Like, 20 mpg is great for an SUV. Or you live only an hour from your work, lucky dog! Or I used to make do in a 2000 square foot house, but 4000 is so much more comfy and there is room to put all my stuff.
We need to readjust to a new reality in small ways and large.
I have small items that are solar like a battery charger and radio.
1) In construction, there are many ways to reduce utility costs (both electric and heating bills) by uncorporating more natural sunlight.
2) If you're looking for solar pannels, solar hot water heaters are much more cost effective than photovoltaics. It also usually cuts oil and natural gas consumption, which are imported fossil fuels, rather than electricity, which is over 50% produced by coal, which is domestic.
If you are interested in putting photovoltaic solar pannels on your house, my best advice would be to wait for a few years. One of the things that has been holding up the price of photovoltaics for the last several years has been a worldwide shortage of silicon. More silicon plants are coming on line in the next few years, and the prices should drop signficantly when they do. If you have the money ready, keep it in a CD or something so you'll have more money to buy them and the pannels themselves will be cheaper.
Of course we don't pay for what economists call "externalities"--all the bad effects caused by extraction, transportation, and burning of fossil fuels. If your state or county offers good tax breaks you may want to consider solar panels now. Or if you have extra money to spend and are a big advocate of solar power you may want to buy now to show your support.
Solar is very good, but right now might not be the best time for it for several reasons. For the last 20 or so years, the price for solar has dropped about 4% per year on average, but it's likely in the next few years the price drop may be much more dramatic. This is because (1) There has been a lot of investment recently in solar production, meaning that as these plants come online, the economies of scale will reduce the price, (2) the cost of solar has been held up for the last several years by high silicon prices, and new silicon plants will soon reduce silicon prices, reducing the cost, and (3) as people become more concerned about global warming and fossil fuel consumption, there is an increased likelyhood that more tax incentives for solar and other renewable energy sources, especially if a democrat takes the presidency.
You're doing the smartest thing--start with the most cost effective means (CFL's are probably the most cost effective one out there) before doing more expensive things, like solar pannels. Either way you're reducing fossil fuel consumption, so it only makes sense to get more bang for your buck.
Preheating water can pay off better, depending on your state's incentives and other computations concerning your roof angles, distance to water-heating apparatus, etc.
There's a magazine called Home Power, and Mother Earth News, Back Home, and others may have interesting reading and schematics and things.
Regarding solar ovens, Oregon has a place called Approvecho which requires their interns to compete with solar heating for their hot beverages. I am pretty sure parabolas end up competing better than squares. You need to focus the rays on a particular place. You also need insulation to keep the heat from dissipating once you have directed the rays, so you need a box, a lid, and rags or something.
We did this at a Permaculture Guild meeting in Portland once. We used cardboard and aluminum foil, and we made cones, sort of. I tried it once with a black teapot, and it got kind of hot, but I did not insulate or cover with clear stuff very well.
Thanks for the posting.