Eligibility relaxed for energy-efficiency assistance

by | Nov 14, 2008 | Uncategorized

From a media release issued by Focus on Energy:

More Wisconsin residents may now be eligible for Focus on Energy’s assistance program which offers limited-income homeowners low-cost efficiency improvements to improve the comfort, safety and affordability of their homes. The assistance program called Targeted Home Performance with ENERGY STAR®, is now seeking applications from homeowners with incomes between 150-250 percent of the poverty level, which is a significant increase from the past maximum of 200 percent. To put the new maximum into perspective, a family of four’s maximum eligible annual income increased to $53,000 from the previous $42,400. . . .

Targeted Home Performance with ENERGY STAR, is part of Focus on Energy, Wisconsin’s energy efficiency and renewable energy program. Targeted Home Performance with ENERGY STAR offers qualifying homeowners a no-cost energy evaluation performed by a qualified program provider. Depending on the results of the evaluation, the home may receive energy efficiency improvements, such as adding insulation, finding and eliminating drafts, replacing an inefficient heating system, installing compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) and more. Targeted Home Performance with ENERGY STAR will pay 90 percent of the costs of the energy efficiency improvements – the homeowner pays just 10 percent.

Energy efficient homes save energy and money all year long. In summer, a home that’s properly sealed and insulated stays cooler and more comfortable, reducing the need for fans and air conditioners during hot daylight hours. In winter, energy efficient homes keep warm air inside, improving comfort and reducing heating costs during Wisconsin’s coldest months.

Homeowners wishing to apply for Targeted Home Performance with ENERGY STAR are encouraged to call Focus on Energy at (800) 762-7077 or visit focusonenergy.com to download an application.

$16 nearly gets you the effect of a wind turbine in your backyard

by | Nov 13, 2008 | Uncategorized

From an article by Julie Lawrence at OnMilwaukee.com

While new fuel efficient cars and home solar panels are some of the most powerful ways to reduce our carbon footprint, a $25,000 investment is usually out of the question for most college students who are already battling rapidly increasing education costs.

But what about spending $16? Two University of Wisconsin student entrepreneurs say it can go further than you might think.

Mechanical engineering major Ted Durkee and business partner Brandon Gador, a recent graduate of Madison’s School of Business, launched Powered Green this past October to provide an economical way for anyone to support renewable energy.

Their product, Energy Seal, is a recycled aluminum laptop sticker that funds carbon offsets. At $16, the cost of the sticker covers the production of enough renewable energy to offset what an average laptop uses in its lifetime.

Amazingly, $14 is enough to subsidize the retail cost of the laptop’s lifetime energy consumption, paying for wind turbines that create electricity. The remaining $2 is for the actual seal, visual evidence that promotes the buyer’s support of the eco-friendly endeavor.

“It essentially has the effect of a wind turbine in your backyard without actually having one,” explains Durkee, who partnered Power Green with Village Green Energy, a renewable energy credit distributor based in California.

Milwaukee company prez says biogas producers need buy-back rates that cover costs

by | Nov 12, 2008 | Uncategorized

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A Clear Horizons’ employee (in the red shirt) leads a tour of the biodigester on the Crave Brothers Farm near Waterloo. The bags along the low wall contain potting soil that includes fiberous material left after the digestion process.

Michael Vickerman previously addressed the need for higher buy-back rates in two proceedings at the Public Service Commission — the first in a rate case for Alliant Energy and the second in a WPS rate case. The rate issue ranks high on RENEW’s agenda for the next two years.

The excerpts below from a guest editorial by Richard R. Pieper Sr., chairman of Milwaukee’s PPC Partners Inc., in The Capital Times re-enforces Vickerman’s argument:

I’m told the following: the world is going green and Wisconsin wants to grow its business base. I believe the former but not the latter, because the Public Service Commission, utilities and some politicians in this state seem to consider both ideas about as important as what cricket team is the current world champion.

I proudly admit to having a horse in this race or at least a cow in the shed. PPC Partners Inc. is one of Wisconsin’s oldest, largest, employee-owned companies. It has over 1,000 employees throughout the U.S., but primarily in Wisconsin. It was started as Pieper Electric by my father, Julius Pieper, with five employees. We have an entrepreneurial spirit and believe in the creativity of Wisconsin workers.

In September, I was told by a group of CEOs that one of our cutting-edge subsidiaries, Clear Horizons LLC, should “locate in California, where you can get things done.” We absolutely do not want to relocate this company. We do want Wisconsin to give more than lip service to supporting alternative sources of energy.

Here’s what Clear Horizons does.

Clear Horizons has developed a solution to dairy farm manure disposal that not only reduces greenhouse gas emissions created by methane gas from the manure, but also provides enough alternative fuel from a herd of 750 cows to electrically power 200 homes. The equipment takes the methane and uses it to power engines that generate electricity which can be bought by utilities. A light bulb does not care if the current is produced by cows or coal. . . .

The lack of cooperation in this state has caused other companies like Microgy to leave for Texas. GHD, a similar company from Chilton, Wis., is doing work in Idaho and Mexico. Within the last 12 months, the states of California, Arizona and Vermont have passed legislation guaranteeing producers of biogas a minimum payment because those legislators understand America must become more energy independent, as well as reduce need for substations and transmission and subtransmission lines.

Jobs? Recent reports state green energy adds jobs. Every MW of biogas installed creates 35 jobs per year. The biogas potential in Wisconsin equates to 14,000 jobs created per year.

Currently, utilities have little incentive to promote alternative energy sources. They act according to federal mandates but are not creatively pursuing opportunities.

Cleaner air, more jobs; what’s not to like? We’re here. We’re ready. We’re necessary to the future of this state. We need some policies. Is anybody listening?

Transit board suggests sales tax for rail, buses for Kenosha, Milwaukee & Racine counties

by | Nov 11, 2008 | Uncategorized

From a story by David Steinkraus in The Journal Times (Racine):

A group representing three local counties and the governor is proposing a sales tax of up to .5 percent to fund public transit.

It’s easy to get lost in the details, but no one should ignore the magnitude of what happened on Monday morning, said Jody Karls, the city of Racine representative on the Regional Transit Authority.

What the RTA voted to do on Monday was ask the state to make it the permanent transit oversight body for southeast Wisconsin and to give it power to levy local sales taxes of up to 0.5 percent in each member area. That tax would fund the extension of Kenosha-Racine-Milwaukee commuter rail service from Kenosha through Racine and to Milwaukee, and would fund other transit modes such as city bus systems.

Beyond those specifics, Karls said, is the over-arching importance of having all the counties and municipalities along the potential KRM corridor speaking with a single voice.

He and other officials met with The Journal Times editorial board on Monday morning, a few hours after the RTA voted on its recommendations. It has a Nov. 15 deadline to report to Gov. Jim Doyle and the Legislature, and it would be up to them to grant the RTA’s requests.

Solar heating system attracts renewed interest at Urban Ecology Center in Washington Park

by | Nov 10, 2008 | Uncategorized

From an article by Dustin Block in The Daily Reporter:

Solar power, a renewable-energy casualty of the early 1990s slain by cheap fossil fuels, is showing signs of life.

The Urban Ecology Center in Milwaukee is reviving a solar-powered heating system at its community center in the county’s Washington Park.

The solar-thermal system was built in the late-1970s as an alternative source of energy during the oil boycott. But as energy prices fell in the U.S. in the 1980s, interest in renewable energy waned and the Washington Park system was shut down.

Joey Zocher, the Urban Ecology Center’s Washington Park program manager, estimated the solar power system is worth about $250,000. But it will take at least $100,000 to get the community center system running again, she said. The building also needs a new roof.

“The county is supportive,” Zocher said, “but we still have some money to find.”

The story behind Washington Park’s solar experiment encapsulates the country’s experience with renewable resources, said Bob Ramlow, who has worked with solar power in Wisconsin since the 1970s and was one of the founders of the Midwest Renewable Energy Fair in central Wisconsin.

“In the 1970s, the whole country was excited and thinking about saving energy,” he said. “People wanted to do their part. It was patriotic to be involved with renewable energy and energy conservation.”

Ramlow said the symbolic moment when the country abandoned that commitment was in 1981, when Ronald Reagan moved into the White House and, on his first day, had the solar collectors on the roof taken off.

“The word from the administration from then to now,” Ramlow said, “was renewable energy sources are the energy of the future, but now we need nuclear, coal and oil.”

He said it took nearly 30 years for renewable energy to recover in the U.S. But projects such as reviving solar energy in Washington Park suggest change is coming.

Shawn Young, solar thermal division director for Madison-based H & H Solar Energy Services, inspected Washington Park’s solar system last year. He sent a report to Milwaukee County concluding the system was worth saving.

“It’s not the best solar collector on the market,” Young said, “but it’s not obsolete.”

The system collects sunlight on the building’s roof and transfers the energy to a liquid that fuels the furnace and generates heat. When it was originally installed, the designers anticipated cutting energy use in the building by 60 to 80 percent. Now, the system could cut energy use 10 to 15 percent, Young said. The decline in savings is mainly because of the system’s age.

But even with the reduced efficiency, the county could save $1,000 a month on its heating bill, Zocher said. She estimated the investment needed to refurbish the Washington Park system would take eight years to pay back.