Welcome to Solar e-Clips. A weekly summary of news and information about solar energy issues in California. Brought to you by The Rahus Institute and Californiasolarcenter.org

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Solar News from around the State...

Solar-powered Train goes on maiden run - SolTrain, the world's first solar-powered train, had its maiden run under bright blue skies after a year in the making. The train rumbled down the tracks along Highway 9 (near Felton, CA) on Tuesday, giving short rides to members of the public and project supporters. The train is the brain child of Sustainable Monterey Bay, a group dedicated to alternative transportation and affordable housing. The single-car train looks like a bus with metal train wheels, which is exactly what it is. The train was fashioned from an electric bus and outfitted with 13 solar panels on the roof and 22 batteries inside. It has a maximum speed of about 10 mph, but project designers said the prototype is just a "proof-of-concept vehicle" that demonstrates a sun-powered train works. Future designs would travel about 50 mph. Total cost was $50,000. in Contra Costa Times 6/14/01

Bright Spots on the Grid - More affordable due to incentives, solar roof panels are gaining popularity. Greg Hanssen parked a sleek electric car in his driveway for three years and nobody ever asked him about it. But it was a different story last month when he installed solar electric panels on the sloping front roof of his house: His curious Irvine neighbors came out of the woodwork. "Everybody wants to talk to me about it," said Hanssen, part of a rapidly growing group of Californians intent on generating their own power with photovoltaic cells that turn sunlight into electricity. Once the most expensive form of renewable energy, solar panels are now more economical, thanks to a combination of skyrocketing utility rates and a California Energy Commission rebate that pays for up to half the cost of setting up a system--the big expense with solar power. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power also offers its customers an attractive rebate. And more could be on the horizon--President Bush's energy plan calls for a 15% tax credit for homes that use solar power, up to $2,000. LYNN O'DELL, in the LATimes 6/17/01

Some Factors to Consider Before Going Solar - Roof requirements: You need as little as 50 square feet for a starter system and as much as 500 to 1,000 square feet for one capable of meeting all a home's energy needs. A square foot of single or poly-crystalline silicon module area produces 10 watts of power in bright sunshine. So a 1,000-watt system needs 100 to 200 square feet of roof... LYNN O'DELL, in the LATimes 6/17/01

Solar flares disorient satellites -- Now here's an extended weather forecast, one for outer space when the sun's eruptions hurl radiation energy and subatomic matter toward Earth. "Strong geomagnetic storms can cause satellites to experience surface charging and orientation problems, and electric power grids can also be affected," said one recent warning from the Space Environment Center in Boulder, Colo. "Such storms can also interfere with high-frequency radio communications." Like birds flying in a thunderstorm, satellites that carry everyday information such as credit card transactions, Internet messages, pager signals, inventory data or cable television signals sometimes traverse solar storms created by eruptions on the sun's surface. Bill Graham in Contra Costa Times 6/17/01 [Ed. Note: nearly all satellites are powered by photovoltaic cells. Read about how solar cells were 1st used for satellites here]

Raising the energy roof -New solar project will supply 20% of Santa Rita's electricity needs - A monster solar roofing system, the largest in the Western Hemisphere, is being cranked up on the roof of Santa Rita Jail (Dublin). Work on the $4.4 million system, designed by PowerLight Corp. of Berkeley, began last week. On Tuesday, county and PowerLight workers were installing solar panels on the second of six buildings at the jail. Completion is expected in late July, when the system will begin cranking out 650,000 kilowatt-hours a year, and saving the jail $300,000 a year. Melissa Moy in Contra Costa Times 6/13/01, PRNewswire 6/12/01, Benjamin Pimentel in San Francisco Chronicle 6/13/01

PV Installation Workshops through the State - The California Energy Commission is sponsoring a series of workshops (June through August 2001) to promote the design and installation of high quality, cost effective PV systems. Hosted by local Joint Apprenticeship Training Centers (JATC) throughout California, this workshop provides an intensive overview of small-scale solar electric generation, basic system design issues, and installation requirements to meet the National Electrical Code (NEC). To learn more (cost, locations, etc.) go to Endecon Engineering 6/13/01

University High's solar-powered car heading for challenge race in July (Irvine, CA)- First it was their dream. Then they built a solar car model from chopsticks. They drew it, life size, on the floor in auto shop. It took form from a pile of pipes. Now the dream is a reality. Joan Hansen in Irvine World News 2/8/01 More about the Winston Solar Car Challenge for High School teams.

Solar Village revisited 20 years later, some residents of Benicia's Solar Village are still reaping its benefits - For 16 years Joseph Chevalier has harnessed the sun's power to provide heat and hot water in his house. In a sense, he's a pioneer, for he's an original owner of a home in Southampton Village in Benicia. Better known as the Solar Village, this planned unit development of 258 single-family houses was built between 1981 and 1985 as part of the larger Southampton project on the Solano County hills overlooking the Carquinez Strait and Suisun Bay. Judy Richter in San Francisco Chronicle 6/10/01

Energy crisis shines spotlight on how we build - The time has come to rethink the way we build our houses. Ever since we traded site-specific building for central heating and air conditioning, our houses have grown more and more hungry for energy. Today, we can erect a thin-walled prefab in the desert and window-walled villa in the mountains - and we do. Lynette Evans in San Francisco Chronicle 6/9/01

'Green' construction shows 'this is doable' - Hidden Villa is about to add a chapter to its half-century of teaching how to live gently on this Earth. Nestled discreetly in the preserve's 1,600 wooded acres in Los Altos Hills, one new building and one old were dedicated Saturday as the latest examples of how far "green" construction has come. A renovated hostel and a new education building celebrate environmentally smart, technologically available and economically attractive construction -- and that's been the idea from the start. That means these buildings feature interior rammed-earth walls to create thermal mass and geothermal-heat pumps for radiant heating and cooling through floor tubing. The wood is either recycled -- some salvaged from the original hostel -- or produced in certified, sustainable harvests. The ceilings are made from waste straw, and the insulation from recycled newspaper. In the state's new energy landscape, the 20-year payback time for photovoltaic systems has been reduced to seven or eight years, said Hidden Villa Executive Director Judith Steiner. "We wanted to show this is doable and get people saying, 'I want to do it,'" Steiner said. "We wanted to get people excited about the concept." As an institution that's long been demonstrating farming techniques that sustain rather than deplete resources, choosing recycled, low-energy-produced materials was just another way to talk the talk, Steiner said. S.L. Wykes in CCTimes 6/03/01

Pool Owners Weather the Energy Crunch - Conservation: More efficient devices and incentives help owners keep costs down. And higher rates aren't scaring off those who want to build. Swimming pools and Southern California are synonymous: It's a fact as clear as chlorinated water to anyone who has ever flown over the area. So do rolling blackouts and rising natural gas and electric rates spell the end of the backyard pool? Hardly. For those who have already taken the plunge--the state's estimated 1.1 million pool owners--a host of products and incentives are available to help take the economic sting out of maintaining that inviting hole filled with 13,000 gallons of water. LYNN O'DELL, in The LA Times 5/20/01

Note regarding dead links: Most publications move stories into their archive after one or two weeks. Use the date provided here with individual stories to help find them after they have been moved. The articles originating from PowerMarketer are presented here in entirety, due to poor links for the full story.

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ABOUT THIS NEWSLETTER
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ABOUT THE EDITOR
Tor Allen is the President of The Rahus Institute, a non-profit organization. Tor has 10 years experience in the renewable energy field including: design, research, marketing, program and policy development, and installation work. He is currently the coordinator of the California PV Alliance, a collaborative group working to accelerate the market for photovoltaics in California.

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