SOLAR TODAY

ISSUE HIGHLIGHTS

Rethinking Solar Water Heating in an Age of Booming PV
SWH could relieve utility stress about the challenges of integrating so much PV, so fast.
By Jill K. Cliburn and Joe Bourg

Affordable Net-Zero-Energy in Outlying D.C.
By minimizing construction and utility costs, the North Pointe homes in Frederick, Md., offer low-cost living  quite a feat in metro Washington, D.C.
By V. Paul Zanecki

Relieving a Glaring Problem
Proper design and siting of solar energy installations is probably the most effective way to mitigate potentially hazardous glare.
By Clifford K. Ho

Squeezing Utility Bill Savings from Commercial PV
Net metering or power purchase agreement? It depends on the customer and utility, but a study of North Carolina commercial customers finds that selling the PV generation yields the best savings, thanks to onerous net-metering charges.
By Kacey Hoover

Power Forward at SOLAR 2013
The 42^nd ASES National Solar Conference gets down to business in Baltimore, Md., April 16–20.
ASES staff

Innovators
Acting Against Coal
By Seth Masia

Investing
Japan’s Big Leap Forward
By Rona Fried, Ph.D.

The trade
Model Zoning Ordinances for Small Wind Turbines
By Mick Sagrillo

New Products
SOLAR 2013 Products Preview

System Accomplished
Do-It-Yourself Pays Off for UPS
By Seth Masia

READ THIS ISSUE

There are several ways to read the issue online:

Subscribers/ASES members: Log in to your member account here, and click on the “SOLAR TODAY Digital” link in the left sidebar. Or, look for your print copy in the mail.

Read on e-reader: Find this issue soon on iBooks or the Kindle! (additional charges apply)

Not a subscriber or member? Sign up today and don’t miss an issue (print and digital versions available).

Featured Event – Passive Conference Plenary:

• The Mythic Modern: Mythology, Ecology and Technology….the Spirit of Place, delivered by Travis Price, FAIA, author of “The Archeology of Tomorrow: Architecture and the Sprit of Place”

Emerging Architecture & Passive Building Technology

Daylighting, Modeling & Building Automation

If your organization would like recognition as a Participating Organization, and you agree to promote the event, the American Solar Energy Society can provide a discount for your members to use.

Qualifying types of organizations include:

• 501(c)3 Nonprofit organizations
• Associations (business, trade or professional) including
  • commercial real estate
  • sustainable business practices groups
  • professional associations
  • chambers of commerce, and others
• Universities, vocational and trade schools as well as their associations
• Government agencies at all levels
• ASES Chapters
• LinkedIn groups
• Advocacy groups (nonprofit)
  

When your group qualifies as a Participating Organization, we will:

• Recognize your organization’s participation on the SOLAR 2013 website (including a link to your organization’s website) and in the program guide at the event
• Provide a discount code for you and your members to use, for registration as well as for exhibit space.
• Provide blurbs, graphics and links for you to use in your communications

To become a Participating Organization your group agrees to promote these SOLAR 2013 opportunities to your membership: 

• Participation as presenters and speakers (call for participation is now open)
• Exhibiting at SOLAR 2013
• Attendance at SOLAR 2013
• Using these types of promotion:
  • Adding a button to your website that links to the SOLAR 2013 website, and
  • Email, newsletter, social networking and other tools that you already use

Click here to get started!

• the 38^th National Passive Solar Energy Conference
• the 8^th ASES Policy and Marketing Conference, and
• the inaugural Young Professionals in Renewable Energy Conference.

The American Solar Energy Society invites participation from professionals with special knowledge in the solar, renewable or sustainability fields. Program selections are based solely on the merit of the abstract or proposal. Acceptance of abstracts or proposals for presentation is based on a review of submitted materials by the designated Solar 2013 review committee. Proposals may include technical papers (to be presented at the conference) as well as forum sessions.

 Technical paper presentations at the conference include:

• Oral presentations – Typically 10-20 minutes per paper presentation (length to be determined and included in acceptance information).
• Poster presentations – Presenters will create a poster to display and will have the opportunity to do a brief overview, followed by discussion.
• “Ignite” presentations – Each presenter has 5 minutes, 20 slides, 15 seconds per slide.

Forum sessions may include:

• Panel discussions organized on a specific topic.
• Demonstrations of technology or techniques.
• In-depth discussion or debates.
• “Shoot-outs” or comparisons of competing (or complementary) technologies.

These are the topical areas for Solar 2013:

Annual National Solar Conference

• Photovoltaics
• Concentrated Solar Power
• Solar Thermal
• Distributed Wind
• Resource Applications and Integration
• Sustainable Transportation
• Water and Energy Technologies
• Cross-Track, Multi-Technology, or Other

Passive Solar Conference

• Emerging Architecture & Passive Building Technologies
• Daylighting, Modeling and Building Automation

Solar and Renewable Policy & Finance Conference

• Finance & Industry Development
• Policy & Sustainability

 Young Professionals in Renewable Energy

The inaugural Young Professionals in Renewable Energy Conference will include sessions from other tracks at Solar 2013. If you would like your proposal to be considered for inclusion, please enter the appropriate information during the abstract submission process. Additional information will be available at solar2013.org.

Continuing Education Credits

Depending on topic, ASES may be able to offer professional continuing education credits for various technical sessions and forums.  Having a session approved for credit can potentially increase attendance and expose your presentation to interested conference attendees.  Presentations that qualify for CEUs will be grouped with other qualifying presentations to enable the entire session to offer credit. If your proposal meets the criteria and is accepted, additional information may be requested from you.

Important Information and Deadlines

• The deadline for submission is November 6, 2012.
• The review process is “blind” – author/submitter names are withheld during the review process.
• Please do not submit multiple formats (e.g., paper and forum) on the same research.
• You will have the opportunity to select your presentation-style preference
• Registration: the presenting author for accepted papers, as well as organizers of accepted forum proposals, must register by February 15, 2013 in order to secure the presentation in the schedule. Other registration information is included in the Terms and Conditions.

Edward Mazria, (Photo Credit: USGBC Colorado)

Sure, this sounds grandiose, but architects rarely shrink from big ideas – least of all Edward Mazria, who will deliver a plenary at WREF2012 on Tuesday morning, May 15^th.  He is the founding father of Architecture 2030, a truly big idea that beats a path to carbon neutrality in the building sector by 2030.  In his lectures, Mazria traces the history of architects as utopian dreamers, driving and driven by their times; leading us into the carbon trap, and leading us out of it.   While he condemns architectural contributions to climate change (almost half of US emissions,) he also praises the purity of purpose that drives architects to the front of the fray in finding solutions.  Carbon-neutral building is a complex game of give and take – of deep energy use reduction followed up by renewable energy supply.  Almost three-quarters of the 30 largest US architecture and engineering firms have taken up the 2030 Challenge, and many are already sending in data to support their 2030 commitments.  Deployed on the community scale, the solution quickly takes on utopian proportions:  Cities and states have taken the Challenge, and whole downtown districts are engaging property owners and tenants in the process of reaching carbon neutrality in the existing urban fabric.  Architects are ambidextrous problem-solvers — cracking technical problems with the one hand while artfully weaving environments where we can live happily with ourselves in an increasingly crowded world.

Lincoln Hall school renovation, Portland 2030 Challenge Design Awards (Photo Credit: Boora Architects)

Mazria keeps his ear to the tracks; reads the clouds like a weatherman.  When I heard him speak a couple of weeks ago, he was brimming with the tacit recognition political powers are already giving to climate change by massing their military interests in the loosening arctic trade routes, and he was forecasting the shifting fortunes of nations relative to their exposed coastlines.  He cited cause for hope:  that our now 392 ppm CO₂ can return to a safe 350 if we stop the extraction and burning of fossil fuels, and learn to run ourselves and our buildings on the ambient energy that has been sufficient for millennia to run all other life.

Architects, says Mazria, are “predisposed to do the right thing.”  In a profession usually entered for idealistic reasons (certainly not for the money!), and now seeing one of the highest rates of unemployment, the drive towards clean energy in the building sector is an issue of survival as much as of purpose.  When he takes the podium at WREF, Mazria will make the case that carbon-neutrality is an issue of survival for all of us – but he will unveil new strategies, and new places, where architects are leading the way.