Solar panels rise pole by pole, followed by gasps of 'eyesore'

Juan Arredondo for The New York Times

Solar panels along Fifth Street in Fair Lawn, N.J. Residents elsewhere were upset they had not been notified before installation.

By MIREYA NAVARRO

Published: April 27, 2011

ORADELL, N.J. — Nancy and Eric Olsen could not pinpoint exactly when it happened or how. All they knew was one moment they had a pastoral view of a soccer field and the woods from their 1920s colonial-style house; the next all they could see were three solar panels.

“I hate them,” Mr. Olsen, 40, said of the row of panels attached to electrical poles across the street. “It’s just an eyesore.”

Around the corner lives Tom Trobiano, 61, a liquor salesman, now adapting to the lone solar panel hanging over his driveway. “When it’s up close,” he said, “the panel takes on a life of its own.”

Like a massive Christo project but without the advance publicity, installations have been popping up across New Jersey for about a year now, courtesy of New Jersey’s largest utility, the Public Service Electric and Gas Company. Unlike other solar projects tucked away on roofs or in industrial areas, the utility is mounting 200,000 individual panels in neighborhoods throughout its service area, covering nearly three-quarters of the state.

The solar installations, the first and most extensive of their kind in the country, are part of a $515 million investment in solar projects by PSE&G under a state mandate that by 2021 power providers get 23 percent of their electricity from renewable sources. If they were laid out like quilt pieces, the 5-by-2.5-foot panels would blanket 170 acres.

New Jersey is second only to California in solar powercapacity thanks to financial incentives and a public policy commitment to renewable energy industries seeded during Gov. Jon S. Corzine’s administration. But what might have been a point of pride in a state better known as the nation’s leader in toxic Superfund sites has instead caused suburban aesthetic unrest.

Some residents consider the overhanging panels “ugly” and “hideous” and worry aloud about the effect on property values.

Though nearly halfway finished, the company’s crews have encountered some fresh resistance in Bergen County, where cities, villages and boroughs are in varying stages of mortification. Local officials have forced a temporary halt in many towns as they seek assurances that they will not be liable in case of injury, but also to buy time for suggesting alternative sites — like dumps — to spare their tree-lined streets.

And here in Oradell, at least one panel has gone missing.

When and where the panels will show up next can be a mystery, prompting complaints over the lack of prior notice.

“I came back from running errands and there they were,” Mrs. Olsen, 37, said. “It’s not right. They should have warned us.”

In neighboring Ridgewood, Deputy Mayor Thomas M. Riche said constituents had called, sent e-mails and stopped him on the street demanding that he halt the encroaching blight. Ridgewood, an affluent village of about 24,000, got PSE&G to cease installations after only a few had been put up, over concerns that they would interfere with the emergency communications boxes on the poles.

The talks are continuing, Mr. Riche said, adding that he is trying to steer the Ridgewood panels to a town park-and-ride lot and its public schools.

“A cluster of panels in one area is better than individual panels all over the town,” he said. “We’re not against solar energy, but there are more efficient ways than having panels on the utility poles.”

PSE&G officials said their search for maximum sun exposure could not dodge and weave residential areas in a place as crowded as New Jersey. It turns out that only a quarter of the company’s 800,000 poles are suitable for the panels, which are mounted 15 feet high and need good southern exposure.

Solar industry experts approve of the decentralized pole-by-pole approach and said it could be just as efficient and cost effective as larger installations.

“Solar is extremely flexible,” said Monique Hanis, a spokeswoman for the Solar Energy Industries Association, a trade group based in Washington. “The utility owns the property already, and the panels can feed right into the transmission line.”

Ralph A. LaRossa, PSE&G’s president and chief executive, said that the company was also placing panels, which direct the energy they generate back into the power grid, at its industrial yards and on facility rooftops, and that it was leasing flat roofs of large buildings, including several schools in Newark. “We’re looking for ways to deploy the technology in the cheapest and most accessible way,” he said.

Yes, Mr. LaRossa said, his company could have communicated better, but he added that Bergen County had become “a pocket” of opposition in what had generally been a welcoming reception.

And not every burg in Bergen County is rebelling. Over in Fair Lawn, Mayor Lisa Swain said that her city had not interfered with the program and that she was trying to make the community sustainable in other ways, like using motion sensor lighting in city buildings.

“I’m going to do what I can,” she said.

Sean Smith, a 43-year-old airline sales supervisor in Fair Lawn, said he was fine with the seven panels on his street, especially “if it’s helping the greenhouse effect.”

“We have the kids to think about,” he said.

But his neighbor Tony Christofi, a 47-year-old contractor, wondered aloud whether Fair Lawn, by not fighting, was getting more than its fair share.

“I’m fine with green energy,” he said, “but are the savings going to be passed on to consumers?”

PSE&G officials said solar energy was still more expensive to produce than more traditional power sources and acknowledged that bills were going up 29 cents a month. Each panel produces 220 watts of power, enough to brighten about four 60-watt light bulbs for about six weeks. When complete, this project is expected to provide half of the 80 megawatts of electricity needed to power 6,500 homes.

Although he supports renewable energy, Gov. Chris Christie, through a spokesman, characterized the mandates that spawned the panel project as “extremely aggressive.” He has already asked that they be re-evaluated.

Over in Oradell, population 8,000, some residents say the new units aren’t worth the effort, producing too little power for the aggravation.

The case of the missing panel has been referred to local law enforcement.

“PSE&G takes a very dim view of people tampering with the equipment,” said Francis Sullivan, a company spokesman, “but that’s secondary to the fact that it’s just a dangerous idea.” All the units are connected to high-voltage wires.

Richard Joel Sr., a lawyer in town, said a panel close to his house had been removed, but demurred when asked if he knew details.

“I’m not saying what happened,” he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/28/science/earth/28solar.html?ref=nyregion&pagewanted=al

Waste-to-electricity plan draws mixed review in NY

By MIREYA NAVARRO

European Pressphoto AgencyA computer simulation of a new waste-to-energy plant planned in Copenhagen.

One of the new initiatives included in the recently updated version of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s environmental agenda — a plan to solicit proposals to try out new technologies that convert garbage into heat and electricity –- is drawing mixed reviews from environmental groups.

Waste-to-energy technologies are widely used in Europe, but have not caught on in a big way in this country, where most trash still goes to landfills. The Bloomberg administration wants to experiment with two specific technologies — anaerobic digestion and thermal processing – to convert solid waste into either electricity or fuel to reduce the use of landfills and the costs associated with transporting waste to them by truck and rail.

Anaerobic digestion uses microorganisms to break down waste and produce a biogas that can be combusted to generate electricity. Thermal processing uses heat to produce a synthetic gas and produce electricity.

Marcia Bystryn, executive director of the New York League of Conservation Voters, called waste-to-energy plants a plus that produce fewer greenhouse gas emissions than the current disposal system. “And you have this twofer,” she added. “You’re creating energy and disposing of waste.”

But groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council say that waste-to-electricity systems are not the best use of resources in New York City, given that it has a recycling rate of less than 20 percent. In Europe, they note, countries like Denmark and Germany that use the technology burn only the trash that cannot be recycled.

“Right now the focus of the Sanitation Department should be on resurrecting the city’s recycling program, finding better ways to handle food and yard waste and making the trash collection system more cost-effective and efficient,” said Eric A. Goldstein, a senior attorney with the council. “They have their hands full.”

PlaNYC, as the city’s environmental plan is known, states that the technologies will be part of a strategy that also envisions “robust” recycling programs. But one program the city has been hoping to expand, the recycling of plastics, may have to wait. Citing limited markets for certain types of plastic, the plan says the city will revisit the expansion of plastics designated for recycling “as markets evolve.”

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/27/waste-to-electricity-plan-draws-mixed-response-in-n-y/

Energy Loan Plan

By MICHAEL HOWARD SAUL

New York City will open a new corporation that will operate a loan program to fund projects that save energy and reduce utility bills, Mayor Michael Bloomberg plans to say Thursday as part of a major policy address.

Four years after releasing PlaNYC—a comprehensive sustainability plan for the city's future—Mr. Bloomberg is slated to re-launch the initiative with updated plans and new policy proposals. The speech is to be delivered at the Harlem Stage, a performing-arts venue in upper Manhattan.

In addition to the new corporation, the mayor will discuss plans to create new solar power plants on top of large areas of capped city landfills, aides said Wednesday. These plants could significantly improve local air quality by reducing power generation at the city's dirtiest plants during periods of peak summer demand, aides said.

Daniel Bragdon, the mayor's sustainability director, said the Bloomberg administration will create the New York City Energy Efficiency Corp., which will use $37 million in federal funding to make loans to property owners interested in energy-efficiency upgrades to their buildings.

"The corporation could loan money, or the [building] owner might go to his conventional bank and get a loan there that is backed by this corporation," Mr. Bragdon explained. "The point is—how do you make this $37 million revolve and go further."

Mr. Bragdon said officials are still assessing what's the most effective role this federal money can play in the marketplace. It is premature, he said, to speculate on how many buildings could be upgraded as a result of the funding.

"We'll devise different programs for different niches of the market," he said.

These energy improvements, officials said, will pay for themselves over time and help the city reach its goal of a "30% reduction in 2005 carbon emissions."

Mr. Bragdon said the city is also exploring public-private partnerships to create large-scale solar power plants on municipal landfills. Officials are looking at landfills in Brooklyn, as well as Fresh Kills on Staten Island, he said.

Four years ago, when Mr. Bloomberg first launched PlaNYC, the most controversial proposal was the mayor's call to charge motorists $8 to enter the most congested parts of Manhattan. The proposal was based on London's successful congestion-pricing program.

"You know, it sounds like a lot of money, but you go to a movie, it's $12," the mayor said at the time. "So, let's, you know, put some of this stuff in perspective here."

The proposal ultimately failed to win approval in Albany.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704658704576275554227111570.html

Empire State Building to strike green gold

City's tallest spire set for recognition as one of its greenest; $550 million renovation to draw LEED certification as well as 38% energy savings.

  By THERESA AGOVINO

Buck Ennis

The Empire State Building is applying for gold LEED status.

The Empire State Building, which is in the midst of a $550 million renovation that includes numerous improvements designed to improve its sustainability, is on track to receive its LEED certification from the U.S. Buildings Council this month.

Upgrades at the 2.9 million-square-foot landmark include green features such as better-insulated windows and an upgraded air-conditioning system—changes that the management said lower energy consumption by 38%. Anthony Malkin, president of Malkin Holdings, an owner of the Empire State Building and its asset manager, said the changes were motivated by a desire to save energy. However, he said that once he realized the work would qualify for a certification, he opted to pursue it.

“We did the work,” Mr. Malkin said. “Why not?”

Mr. Malkin said the building would merit a gold rating. A U.S. Buildings Council spokeswoman said the organization doesn't disclose which rating a building will receive ahead of time.

LEED, which is named for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, was launched in March 2000. It measures various metrics that contribute to sustainability, including carbon emissions, water efficiency, energy savings and building materials.

In the decade since LEED was introduced, many developers have constructed or renovated their buildings to earn certification, both to help the environment and lure tenants.

However, in recent years other standards have also emerged, especially to measure energy efficiency. Additionally, later this year, New York City will begin requiring building to report their energy use, and those results will be posted publicly. The city hopes the postings will shame energy hogs into making changes that will put them more in line with their peers.

http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20110415/REAL_ESTATE/110419896

A kid from SoHo builds the country's first zero-energy development

BY KAREN ANGEL
Friday, April 8th 2011, 8:25 AM

PHOTOS BY NORMAN Y. LONO

Anthony Aebi just wanted to build structurally sound houses that would last. In the process, he ended up creating the first zero-energy, single-family housing development in North America.

Less than 80 miles from New York City, these already-historic houses use solar panels, geothermal heat pumps, triple-pane windows and an airtight structure of concrete blocks coated with Styrofoam to produce more energy than they consume.

Aptly called Green Acres, the development consists of five homes just outside New Paltz. Two more homes are under construction, with a total of 25 planned. In nearby Esopus, Aebi built two more net-zero energy homes at Riverview Estates. Eleven more are planned.

“I’m not a green person – I’m a practical person,” explains Aebi, 41, who grew up in 1970s SoHo, the son of loft builder and artist Ernst Aebi, an investor in both Green Acres and Riverview Estates. “I build houses that make common sense.”

Newlyweds Ryan, 31, and Patty Dannemann, 26, are thrilled they will never pay energy bills.

In 2006, Anthony moved to Esopus to make what he calls “stick-built houses,” wooden structures based on Early American homes. Aebi, his wife and three children live in one of those houses, even though he no longer believes in them.

“I realized ‘stick’ was garbage,” he says, recounting how his travels in Europe helped reinforce that realization.

“Whenever you bust into an old house and do renovations, there’s lots of mold, there’s more damage. The rest of the world looks at American housing as temporary housing. If you live in suburbia, most houses aren’t older than 60 years. You go to the rest of the world, and almost everything is built out of concrete or stone or something more permanent.

Related: Bond Street, a tour of the NYC's hottest street

“The American style, simply the material choices, is not sustainable, and that’s probably the only green idea I had. It’s not sustainable to build these houses that have to be torn down and rebuilt every 100 years.”
In 2007, for a 15-acre rural Esopus lot, Aebi started researching materials that would last longer. He “stumbled across” insulating concrete forms, or ICF. The Styrofoam-coated concrete blocks, which fit together like Legos, had been around for decades but weren’t widely used in the U.S. The insulation starts at the slab under the basement and extends to the roof.

Large master bath in David Shepler’s home.

“The whole outside envelope of the house is insulated,” Aebi says. “Most people just insulate the attic ceiling. I’m keeping all the cold or the heat outside the house.”

He added a heat-recovery ventilator to recycle energy from outgoing air – energy that is lost in conventional homes – as well as an electric water heater and low-flush toilets. Finally, he installed high-end appliances, a Jacuzzi in every bathroom and steam showers in the 4,000-square-foot home.

“You’re not being a granola nut living in this house,” Aebi says. “I wasn’t out to attract environmentally conscious people. I wanted people who wanted bells and whistles in their house. And I was able to show you could do zero energy and have bells and whistles.”

EXPLORE: Homes for sale in NYC

The zero-energy rating came as a surprise to Aebi.

“When the rater finished rating the house for Energy Star,” Aebi says, referring to the federal tax-credit program, “he said, ‘Oh, my God, your house rates zero-energy. It’s the only one in the Northeast,’ and he started getting really excited.”

After finding out he had inadvertently created the only net-zero-energy house in the Northeast, Aebi set his sights high.

“I let it go to my head and probably made a stupid mistake,” he says of putting the house on the market for $1.05 million and quickly building another, a 5,000-square-foot house that he offered for $1.2 million. “I stigmatized the house.”
Those houses — which he later discovered were actually the only zero-energy homes in the country and possibly in the world — still haven’t sold, despite lower asking prices of $795,000 and $848,000.

Aebi had better luck with Green Acres, selling the first house there to Air Force veteran David Shepler for $640,000 just after it was completed. Four more houses, each on one-third-acre lots, have since sold. Aebi credits both the lower price points and higher traffic — the development is just outside New Paltz’s busy downtown retail and commercial strip.

Buyers receive a number of incentives that offset the solar and geothermal systems’ high cost — about $80,000, which adds 10% to 15% to the cost of each house. The incentives include a 30% solar and geothermal federal tax credit; a 25% solar state tax credit, capped at $5,000; a NYSERDA (New York State Energy Research and Development Authority) solar rebate of about $9,000, and thousands a year in savings on utilities.

The houses are on the electrical grid so the home can draw power the conventional way when occupants’ energy needs are unusually high or solar production is low. At the end of each year of occupancy, the homeowners’ local utility company buys back any surplus energy – but at wholesale rates that are about a third of the retail rates it charges consumers.

When Shepler, an IBM project manager, moved to New Paltz from Texas in 2007 and started house shopping, he was “frustrated by the lack of energy-efficient and green features in the homes,” he says. “No one, until I found Anthony Aebi, brought it all together into one concept. When my Realtor introduced me to him and to the concept he described for the Green Acres community, I was sold.”

Shepler, 40, worked with Aebi and architect David Toder, adding a floating staircase, a flat deck with cable rails above the garage and an upgraded photo-voltaic system that could someday be used to charge an electric car.
The house has lived up to its billing, and the systems are going strong with little to no upkeep, Shepler says. Central Hudson Gas & Electric sent him a check for $85 after his first year of occupancy and one for $172 last month. He felt “validated and satisfied,” he says. “The home had realized the zero-energy goal.

“Many people think trying to achieve zero energy is something for the future, that the science isn’t there yet or that it’s prohibitively expensive to do,” Shepler adds. “The technology is definitely there — Tony used off-the-shelf technology; he just put it together in a smart way.

“Yes, there’s definitely an investment up-front to put some of this in place, but when you look at the total equation, because of the zero-energy piece and having no utility bills, the economics work for you.”
Aebi takes the concept further: “If New York State is ever as brilliant as New Jersey” — where consumers get more than $600 per megawatt hour of energy production on the open market through the state’s Solar Renewable Energy Certificates program — “one of these houses would actually be earning an income.”

Ryan Dannemann bought a 2,400-square-foot house at Green Acres for $519,000 months after Shepler, in August 2009. Dannemann’s wife, Patty, 26, a teacher, says at first she and her husband were skeptical.
“We thought it was too good to be true,” she says. “Then we sat down and saw the numbers, and they pan out. As a science teacher, I preach this stuff to kids all the time. I believe in alternative energy wholeheartedly, but it’s hard to live that way in our world.”

Ryan, 31, a pilot in the New York Air National Guard, says with the energy savings factored in, their yearly expenses are about the same as they would be for a $400,000 conventional house.

“I paid $100,000 more than I was planning to, but the concept of this home allowed me to justify a larger down payment because you save so much over the long term,” Dannemann says. “In 20 years, the mortgage is paid off, and the energy is paid off.”

Pointing to a conventional house next-door, he adds, “If I ever have to move into a house like that, it’s going to be depressing. All our friends and family who come through and look always have the same question: ‘Why isn’t every home built this way?’”

****

ENERGY SAVERS GET MORTGAGE HELP

Green-building specialists say banks should give net-zero homebuyers a break by taking into account the thousands a year they will save on energy and the $30,000 they will receive in federal and state tax credits.

Brian Mathews, director of residential mortgage lending at Ulster (N.Y.) Savings Bank, which has underwritten two Green Acres mortgages, says he does exactly that, tacking 3% to 5% onto a prospective homebuyer’s monthly income when figuring out how much the buyer can afford to spend. “We understand that buyer won’t have the traditional expenses of someone who’s heating the house with gas or oil, and we’re able to expand the underwriting ratios,” says Mathews, who calls Aebi’s houses “state of the art.”

“You may pay more for the house up-front, but over time, you get the benefits in terms of the energy efficiency.”
Salisbury Bank of Lakeville, Conn., offers a green loan program, discounting adjustable-rate mortgages by 50 basis points when green features make up at least 25% of the home’s value. That can translate into thousands in savings, says Amy Raymond, Salisbury’s vice president of residential lending. Since introducing the discounted rate in 2008, the bank has made about 10 such loans.
http://bestplaces.nydailynews.com/stories/kid-soho-builds-countrys-first-zero-energy-development-new-york

Powering Down in Japan

By JAMES SIMMS

   Wall Street Journal

A key question for Japan's economy is how much electricity it will have in the peak summer months.

The region around Tokyo, which accounts for 40% of the nation's economy, most of Japan Inc.'s head offices and a third of the population, can barely meet peak demand now. In the event of a hot summer, there may only be enough electricity to supply three-quarters of demand. Shortfalls could last months, or years.

So far, rolling blackouts, conservation, lower industrial demand and spring weather have prevented the situation from turning dire. But the future isn't bright.

First, four of the six reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant are finished. The other two reactors might be as well simply by association. Other nuclear plants that powered down after the March earthquake and those that were already off line for regular maintenance may struggle to get local political approval to soon fire up again.

Fixing nuclear facility vulnerabilities such as inadequate backup cooling systems as well as earthquake and tsunami-proofing could take years and billions of dollars. And until this month, barely-contained spent uranium fuel pools weren't a focus. They are now.

Plants across Japan are sitting on 13,500 tons of spent fuel, much of that in pools that proved hazardous in Fukushima. Reactors are forecast to generate that much again over the next decade, Japan's Federation of Electric Power Companies said last year.

Four years after a 2007 quake, three of seven reactors in the Kashiwazaki Kariwa nuclear plant operated by Tokyo Electric Power Co. still aren't generating power. In August, two more Kashiwazaki reactors are set to shut down for scheduled maintenance. All told, just the nuclear-power shortfall may mean 23% of TEPCO's generating capacity would be out. That excludes damaged conventional plants, which may not return to use as quickly as the company's optimistic assumptions. Also, any shortfall in electricity or a shortage of rainfall makes it harder to operate pump-type hydroelectric stations.

Other types of generation such as natural gas and oil are used for peak periods, but nuclear plants operate as continuously as possible to meet baseload demand. When it comes to electricity, the heat will be on for the foreseeable future.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703712504576240544233310506.html