Architecture Students Go Solar

  • The University of Maryland's solar powered house, designed to resemble the path of the sun across the sky, contrasts with the older architecture of the Smithsonian Museum. (Photo by Stefano Paltera/Solar Decathlon)

18 teams from around the world are competing this week
in a solar home competition in Washington, D.C. Each team competes
to see who can build the most aesthetic and livable solar home.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jennifer Guerra reports:

Transcript

Eighteen teams from around the world are competing this week in a solar home
competition in Washington, D.C. Each team competes to see who can build the
most aesthetic and livable solar home. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Jennifer Guerra reports:


Richard King is the director of the Solar Decathlon
Competition in the nation’s capital. We called him on his cell phone as he
was wandering around the National Mall checking out the different houses.
We asked him why he thought solar homes have a future in the housing market.


“You see gas prices are going up, natural gas prices are going up. We call
that volatility in the supply market. Solar energy doesn’t have that. Yes,
you have to buy a collector that you put on your house, but from then, on for the
next twenty years, you don’t have to worry about the price of energy going up
because the sunlight is free.”


Free and limitless, as King points out, and the houses being put up on
the mall try to show how they take advantage of that energy and still look
like something you’d want to live in. As King wandered around the solar
village, he stopped at the University of Michigan’s house.


“Michigan just got their end caps on, and now we finally see what it looks
like. We were all wondering what they had up their sleeve, so it’s pretty
neat.”


Before the University of Michigan team shipped their house to D.C., we
dropped by the School of Architecture. They were just putting the finishing
touches on their entry.


(Sound of talking)


That’s John Beeson, the project manager of the Michigan Solar House
project. It’s called Mi-So for short. They had to be creative to make sure
their entry was dependent on the sun for energy.


“This is a solar contest, so we are very limited in terms of what we can do for energy production. We can’t even convert kinetic energy, somebody bouncing on something, into electrical energy. We’re very limited.”


The house has to be totally off the grid, which means lots of large
batteries and thin, photovoltaic panels, neither of which make for an
aesthetically pleasing house. And in the world of architecture, if it doesn’t look good from the outside, no one’s going to care if its energy efficient.


“Most consumers today aren’t gonna buy something just because it’s sustainable.”


Lee Devore is the Michigan team’s operations manager.


“But if you have two apples, and they’re identical, and their cost is
roughly the same, if one is more sustainable than the other, it’s that extra
thing, but the thing they’re really concerned about is that it’s still a beautiful
thing to possess.”


Back on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., Solar Decathlon
Competition director Richard King says in this contest, beauty’s as
important as sustainability.


“In the 70’s, we just stuck solar collectors on the roofs in all kinds of
directions and one of the barriers are a lot of people didn’t like that up there on
their roof. So we’ve employed these schools of architecture to design very
beautiful-looking buildings with solar integrated in to actually
prove that solar energy works.”


So to make Michigan’s solar house stand out as the belle at the D.C.
National Mall, John Beeson says the team turned to Michgan’s most noted
industry, the automakers, for tips.


BEESON: “People like taking their cars and tricking them out, and the house is the same thing, you
just don’t know you’re doing it, every time you move into it. So why not make the architecture built that way, so that people can change it and affect it the way they want. So for us, there would just be panelized construction. We would just put these panels up, I’m done with this sink, this mirror combination. I’m gonna take it down and sell it on Ebay.”


GUERRA: “Are people ready for this?”


BEESON: “We hope. If not, it’ll be a good exploratory example of it on the
National Mall for people to go see.”


Even after a winning team’s been picked, the challenges aren’t over. It’s one thing to build a solar prototype for the competition, it’s another to
take that prototype and turn it into homebuilding that can be mass-produced
for less waste and lower costs. Once that happens, we might just see solar
homes popping up in new neighborhoods.


For the GLRC, I’m Jennifer Guerra.

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Lack of Investment in Renewables to Hurt Businesses?

  • Mike LeBeau installs solar and wind energy systems. He has put in more generators this year than in the last 10 years combined, thanks to rebate programs offered by the state and local governments. (Photo by Stephanie Hemphill)

Representatives of nearly 200 countries recently met in
Argentina to work out the next steps in dealing with climate change.
Seven years ago, many nations agreed to reduce fossil fuel emissions
and greenhouse gases. The U.S. didn’t agree to reduce its emissions.
Now, a report from the National Environmental Trust says that decision
is hurting American businesses. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Stephanie Hemphill reports:

Transcript

Representatives of nearly 200 countries recently met in Argentina to
work out the next steps in dealing with climate change. Seven years
ago, many nations agreed to reduce fossil fuel emissions and
greenhouse gases. The U.S. didn’t agree to reduce its emissions.
Now a report from the National Environmental Trust says that
decision is hurting American businesses. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill reports:


Mike LeBeau installs wind generators and photovoltaic solar
collectors. His business, Conservation Technologies, is in Duluth,
Minnesota. In the U.S., there are not a lot of contractors doing this
kind of work.


“This is a two and a half kilowatt photovoltaic system.”


Two panels about the size of a dining room table stand on the top
floor of a downtown garage. The only other equipment is an inverter
– a metal box the size of a shoebox – that transforms the direct
current from the solar panels to the alternating current we use in our
homes.


“The electricity is produced here by the sun, fed into the wiring in the
building here, and any excess is distributed out onto the utility grid.”


The solar panels were made in Japan. And the inverter is from
Germany.


LeBeau has been installing systems like this for ten years. Demand
was slow until a year ago, when Minnesota started a rebate program.
LeBeau has put in more generators this year than in the last ten
years combined.


With another rebate offered by the local utility, LeBeau says the cost
of installing a typical system can be cut nearly in half.


And he says the increased activity has persuaded some of the
naysayers to help rather than hinder renewable energy projects.


“Now the electrical inspectors don’t have any choice – it’s being
supported by the utilities, and by the state of Minnesota, so it’s really
changed the atmosphere and the climate that we work in.”


But LeBeau says the state rebate program is a drop in the bucket
compared to what’s being done in other countries.


Christopher Reed agrees. He’s an engineer who advises individuals
and businesses on renewable energy projects. He says U.S. policy
has been piecemeal and erratic. For instance, there’s a federal tax
credit for renewable energy production. But it’s only in place for a
year or two at a time.


“When the incentive is out there, everybody ramps up as fast as they
can, and we slam projects in to meet the deadline before the credit
expires, and then everybody sits until the credit gets reintroduced
again. This has happened three times now.”


Reed says that discourages long-term investment.


Reed’s business is one of several American firms studied for the
report from the National Environmental Trust. The report says Japan
and most countries in Europe are providing major and consistent
incentives to encourage production of renewable energy. The report
says this approach is saving money, creating jobs, and putting
businesses in a position to export their new technologies and
expertise.


Reed says he’s frustrated to see European and Japanese companies
thrive, using American inventions such as photovoltaic, or PV,
technology, while American manufacturers fail.


“It’s almost embarrassing. The PV technology, that came out of Bell
Labs in the U.S. We should be the world leaders.”


But some observers say the worry is overblown. Darren McKinney is
a spokesman for the National Association of Manufacturers. He says
the U.S. has nothing to fear from German or Japanese businesses.
He says fossil fuels are doing a good job of stoking the American
economy.


“The fact of the matter is that wind and solar and biomass and
geothermal simply aren’t ready for prime time. If someone wants to
make an argument ‘well, they could be ready for prime time if they
received x-amount of tax cuts,’ I won’t necessarily argue against that
because I don’t know enough about the technologies. What I do
know is it would be cutting off our nose to spite our energy face if we
turn our backs on fossil fuels.”


Right now, oil and natural gas get the lion’s share of federal subsidies
in the U.S. Subsidies for renewable energy sources are very small in
comparison. As other countries shift to new technologies, American
companies could be left behind.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.

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