As we approach the first Power Lunch Kitsap event, we have created an EventBrite invitation.  Please feel free to share with anyone who may be interested.

Our inaugural speaker for this series will be Jake Wade of PSE speaking about the renewable energy incentives, and updating us on current numbers and production data.  The events will all be 3rd Thursdays, this first one is March 19, 12:30-1:30 at the offices of Rice Fergus Miller Architects 275 Fifth Street, Suite 100, Bremerton.

http://www.eventbrite.com/e/power-lunch-kitsap-tickets-15444858989?aff=eivtefrnd

We are currently adding to our installation installation crew.  The right candidate will be a licensed electrician or will become an electrical trainee once working for us.

Job duties include working with the crew to perform the full installation of grid-tied pv systems from start to finish.

All tasks will be completed with priority given to the highest quality workmanship, safety on the job, and excellent customer service.

The work tasks include:

– Site evaluation to determine best method of roof access

– High roof work while harnessed to install the racking system, including sealing and flashing many different roof types.  Attic carpentry is sometimes required to provide additional bracing.

– Carrying 40-60 lb pv modules up a ladder, sometimes to the second story roof.

– Mounting, grounding, and wiring pv modules to the racking

– Conduit runs from roof to electrical panel, sometimes in attic or crawlspace

– Installation of inverter and other equipment, electrical interconnection to existing or sometimes new electrical service panel

– Maintenance of clean job site, properly stocked work vehicle, and warehouse

If you can do those tasks well in four 10 hour days per week, we offer:

– an excellent work experience with good pay

– on-the-job and classroom training

– company group health plan

-profit sharing

-vacation accrual, and

– quarterly bonuses based on performance

– all while doing the right thing for our clients, our community, and the environment.

Our crew is open to installers who love to work in all types of inclement weather and work hard long hours with a positive, cheerful, and professional attitude.  The highest priority will be given to candidates with:

– experience installing PV

– electrical experience and familiarity with the NEC

– NABCEP certification

To apply please submit a resume to info@powertripenergy.com, no calls or walk-ins please.

We are happy to announce the commencement of a monthly series of free presentations regarding a variety of local energy topics.  The first three of these events have speakers confirmed and we will be announcing subsequent events as speakers are confirmed.  These events are the 3rd Thursday of every month at 12:30-1:30 pm in Bremerton at the offices of Rice Fergus Miller, 275 5th St, Suite 100, downtown near the ferry dock.  There will be no food provided, please bring a brown bag lunch for yourself if you wish.

The first speaker March 19 will be Jake Wade from PSE, who will speak to the solar policies and incentives of the largest utility in the state, and present data as to the number of grid-tied solar pv systems and the amount of energy they are currently producing.   Next up April 16 will be Richard Berg from Terrapin Architects speaking about his experiences with Passive Houses and extreme residential energy efficiency.  On May 21, Graeme Sackrison will talk about the challenges and successes experienced implementing Residential and Commercial Energy Efficiency measures as a member of the Thurston Climate Action Team and Lacey City Council.

This series of events is sponsored by Power Trip Energy Corp and by Rice Fergus Miller Architecture.  The full schedule is here:

https://powertripenergy.com/power-lunch-kitsap/

“Do you install batteries with the Solar Panels?”

Recommendation #1 – If possible, build your home and structure your life so that a few days without electricity is not an emergency. This means:

• Secondary heat source if primary source of heat for house is electric.
• Keep some water stored in containers if you have a well pump and no tanked storage (this is a good idea even if you rely on a municipal water system.)
• Plenty of rechargeable batteries for flashlights and radios.
• Portable stove for cooking if you have an electric stove in your kitchen.
• Heat water for washing dishes and hands and face on wood stove or cook stove if you have an electric water heater.
• Eat the food that will spoil first, consolidate in freezer.  If temp is freezing outside, this can help keep some food frozen.  It may also be possible for you to get ice from a store to keep fridge and freezer cold.
• A small portable inverter that can charge your mobile devices from the car battery.  This can be very small that plugs into your car “cigarette lighter” port, or slightly larger that will clamp onto your car battery terminals.

This is the advice that will let you get through ordinary outages with minimal inconvenience for the least expenditure.

Recommendation #2 – If recommendation #1 does not work for you, buy a generator that uses fuel you are already using for other engines.  If you have a car that runs on gasoline, get a small gas generator and store some gas.  In the order of expense and capacity from lowest to highest:

• A small generator and a heavy duty extension cord with a surge strip can power several plug-in devices.  A Honda 2000 watt generator is less than $1000 and is very quiet while sipping gasoline.
• Re-wire a small number of “critical circuits” into a backed up sub-panel, and use a generator transfer switch to manually disconnect from grid, and run those circuits from a small generator.
• Get a large whole-house generator, and replace your main service panel with an auto-transfer panel.

Here are the reasons we do not currently offer battery back-up:

• Batteries are currently expensive, inefficient, and relatively low energy density on a residential scale.  It is possible you could spend tens of thousands of dollars on a huge battery back-up, and still be out of power three days into a winter outage.
• The best practice for combining batteries and pv is to utilize an AC-coupled battery system.  Our homes run using AC electricity (alternating current.)  Previously, battery back-up systems were DC-based systems where the pv power source had been connected directly to batteries before being converted to AC by inverter for use in the house.
•  With an AC-coupled system, the pv power is sent directly to the a grid-tied inverter and the power is either used by house loads or sent back onto grid.  The battery bank is managed by its own inverter/charger and is just another household appliance.
• The AC coupled battery system can be added at any time to a house with a grid-tied pv system.

Recommendation #3 – You should install the grid-tied pv system without batteries now because:

•  Prices are lower than ever.
•  All of the available incentives from federal to state are focusing on grid-tied pv systems, and there are no incentives for battery back-up systems.
•  An AC-coupled battery system can be added later, hopefully after prices fall and perhaps better battery technologies will be available as a result of the growth of the Electric Vehicle market.

If you are inclined to do further research on your own, here are three AC-coupled systems we are currently keeping an eye on, with the intention of installing for our existing solar customers when the technology and pricing improves.

Mission accomplished (Phase 1 at least) with the completion of this charging location at John L Scott Real Estate. The fifth of five Level II EV charging stations installed in Port Townsend – access is free to the public.

http://api.plugshare.com/view/location/61257

To review, as you come into town, your 6 free level II locations are:

Power Trip Energy – 83 Denny Ave – 2 Level II’s, one 30 A, one 20 A – under the solar canopy

John L Scott – 2219 W Sims Way

PT Laundromat & Car Wash – 2115 W Sims Way

GreenPod Devt – 1531 W Sims Way

Windermere Realty – 1220 Water Street

NW Maritime Center – 431 Water Street – the last parking spot on the right on Water St

The 4th free public EV charging location this year went live today at GreenPod Devt / Senergy Station.  The owners of this business are generously donating the electricity and parking for free public EV charging.  Fair warning: there is a lot of activity at this site, and vehicles may sometimes need to be moved to gain access to the charging location, until all of the people involved with the various businesses here become accustomed to the EV service equipment.

Equipment donated by Power Trip Energy Corp as part of the Power Trip Port Townsend EV Tourism Initiative.  This location is especially SWEET because it used to be a Texaco station until the late 1980’s, recently morphed into an incubator site for multiple sustainable enterprises.

http://api.plugshare.com/view/location/61051

Tobin Booth provides a good primer on Net Metering in the article linked below.  We have a strong foundation here in Washington with our state laws, but our 1998-era Net Metering Law is hamstrung with caps that are too restrictive.  Who would have ever imagined that one day we would have solar capacity of 0.5% of our peak loads ?!?  Now that we have reached this amount in a few utility territories, we are faced with reactionary policy efforts from old-school utility execs in Olympia fearful for their revenues.

Unfortunately, instead of working together to envision how we could enact virtual net metering, we are combating various utility proposals to roll back progress and assign unrealistic and unnecessary costs to new Net Metering Customers who want to install solar.

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/blog/post/2015/02/solar-net-energy-metering-now-in-many-flavors

There are some new rules proposed by Clallam PUD that will affect our clients who wish to install grid-tied solar pv systems.  Some of the proposed rules would add expense, complexity, and uncertainty – we feel needlessly.

Here are the proposed rules:

Interconnection Requirements_Draft_2014-11-18-3

and our comments:

Clallam PUD interconnection draft comments Dec 2014

A pair of RAV4 EV’s at Power Trip Energy’s free solar powered EV charging location.

Yesterday we had the opportunity to speak to the Jefferson Chamber of Commerce about our EV Tourism Initiative, which was fun.  Thanks for inviting us!

We are making that presentation available here:

PT EV Tourism Initiative