Johnson Controls Cogenra and York team up!

OK we learned a little more and yes...

This IS what I've been talking about!

Dear Reader, this is the moment. Possibly our moment.

Are you are reading this because you are seeing this double whammy of increased efficiency AND reduced load / demand reduction as a game changer?

Do you compete with Johnson Controls or York? or both? We should talk. They have a neat offering, for sure, and it is game changing. But there is a still better way. I'm working on it.  Let them go educate the public about the value and role of hybrids in the generation, conservation plus the air conditioning space.  While they do that we'll generate the version that wins the day. Seriously, I can layout the advantage that I present in about 20 min.

My guess is you are reading this because you understand the problem with temperature and Photovoltaic materials.  And that you get the frustrating "loss" of the thermal potential in most PV collection schemes.  Cogenra makes sense to you but the limits on where they can install and the scale and the granularity and the temperatures seem just short of the win. And 10X suns? is that all?

Ping me.

OK not a hybrid but neat way to stack the Air Conditioning and DC power cards

These guys have a different spin on running Air Conditioning on solar power: just make a DC air conditioner.  Nice. They run it at 24V. I am not sure why they did not go for a higher voltage to sneak out some more efficiency.... I'll leave a question and see what comes of it. But they skip the inverter losses and seem to have made a tidy little unit.

http://www.greenrealitiesllc.com/virtual-powersolar-ac.html

13,500 BTUs... a small RV AC unit size. Not too shabby. The additional goodies (grid-tie option and battery carrier area) seem to be in the "technically feasible but lots of regulations to contend with" category. But the "stand-alone, grid-free AC while the sun shines" part is good to go. I'm guessing there are plenty of customers for that.

Cogenra keeps chugging along

Here is a more detailed than usual story. In the Ventura County Naval Community newsletter - you go to source for energy efficiency news evidently.

Take a look at how burly their mounts are. 100 mph winds they say are no problem... I'm ready to believe it.

The story has a prohibition on "redistribution" so I'll leave it over there and aim you.

Johnson Controls Releases Hybrid Solar Thermal-PV Cooling System

SolarIndustryMag.com: Johnson Controls Releases Hybrid Solar Thermal-PV Cooling System

I need to look into this. More as I know it.

Solar Industry Mag discusses the troubles of super abundance

OK kinda...

how to deal with the increasing saturation of PV in HI is a really interesting issue and it gets started here:

SolarIndustryMag.com: Hawaii's Novel Approach To Solar PV Integration

Let us watch this space. Grid management and renewables is a problem covering up an opportunity. Many opportunities I think.

quick link to a fun history of Invention in Oakland CA

Fun romp through Oakland California's inventive history. Kinda heavy on the food (sound right - we have serious foodies going waaaaay back. ) Not so far as he Miwok (they ate blanched acorns - yuck) but sometime after first contact things started getting yummy...

Take a look. Someday I could be on that list.

Why am I so posessed by Air Conditioning?

I finished some paperwork today and my reward is some time surfing the web looking at where folks see the energy market going... Lots of neat stuff. Like storage. Wow are folks sure storage is the next big thing. Will it ever be as cheap as demand management or load shifting? I would not have guessed so but the efficiencies some of the players are claiming and the low costs of some of these systems (liquid metal batteries and LightSail energy) might make a believer out of me. But even their new found passion for low cost seems like it might not be enough. I know, lots of "mights" in that. I'm an outsider so I need to hedge my bets.

I don't envy any of them trying to pitch that side (the utility side) of the meter. To me, bypassing the electric utilities has (if you can still keep costs down) the merit of one less middleman (or middlelady or, more likely. middlehorde) and a bit more profit to be had/split with the customer. Further you can diversify your customer base, potentially. But those guys need gear for sure.

But my sense of it is based on the broad energy appetite of buildings (and their inhabitants of course.) And that appetite can be served by electricity AND heat as a service and natural gas and heating oil and wood and even ground temperature differences.  Let's look at a pie chart, may we?

HOLD ON... Check out all the hits on Google Image search when you put in: "household energy use pie chart" Neato! It looks like everybody is doing their own work on this one. Sometimes I search for things and I find the same images used over and over by everybody. But on this, they are not just using their own colors and other decorative choices, they are using their own data too. Yay for regionally specific content... so let's grab some:

Texas? Are you there? Come in Texas! Yes I know you are the second largest State! And yes, I know you used to be a country. Can you show me your pie chart now? I'll bet it is the biggest, right?

Nice work. Y'all should have it made into silver belt buckles or something. Really smart looking...

Readers... (No Texas, I'm not making fun of you - I know you read, I want you to join in this part too) do you notice that all the parts except for appliances and lighting (aka the majority) are thermal? Half is straightup old fashioned heating things up. Water and air... then nearly 20 is cooling things off... (which can be accomplished, albeit inefficiently with heat.) The majority of the loads in Texas can be served with heat. Solar is awesome for heat.

OK... back to the pile o' pies... what looks good... ummm.... Florida? Florida!

Ok now we're styling...  tipped with a slice sliding down, how appetizing. This comes from United Solar. Florida? Why did you put in dollar amounts? Seems like it will make your graphic dated soon. But super for us, right? Again, we have all those heat serviceable loads hanging together and totaling some 77% Same 45% on the space heating and air conditioning. Something Floridians and Texans can agree on.  Lots of folks would round that up to 50%.

What might we learn from the wizard community? Wizards? What say ye? (and try to keep it in pie chart form, ok?)

Stylin'! Those drop-shadows really bring it home. Well played Home Wizard. And again, services that can boil down to heat are the majority.  Very wizardly exclusions too. What an odd batch: Kilns and digital video recorder boxes... you can't be too careful I suppose..

I'm all full up on Pie. Thanks Google, Florida, Texas and Wizards. Great work.

So, if a hybrid can address those thermal needs AND the electric needs it can earn its keep faster. But those air conditioning needs are special in the sunbelt. The are big, concentrated in just a few hours of a few months and they eat the most expensive watts the sunbelt makes: peak summer watts.

So that is why I'm on the lookout for others who would serve that market... and here is a neat story about some of the more interesting ones: Assuming you have been sedated. Which is not unlikely because here you are reading waaay down on my obscure blog.

Greentechmedia.com on air conditioning to watch out for.

Interesting that so many are aimed at shaving down the demand there. That is a good idea for sure but it runs the risk of joining lighting projects as the low hanging fruit of efficiency first, generation second. Great for customers, tough on me. I can take it I think. At some point, though as generation prices drop, buying prices rise and efficiency grows the lines will cross on the graph and we'll potentially have super efficient homes serving as widely distributed power plants rather than just lower net-energy users. That will be odd. Exciting and odd. IF we keep pressing.