July 25, 2008

Clean, Green Evergreen

By Bill Highlander
Editor

At the July 16 meeting, two major topics were discussed.

First, the group determined what po-tential buyers want to know from solar vendors. A buyer’s guide will be developed to assist homeowners who want to participate in the solar initiative. Items include installation, aesthetics, warranties, costs and upgrades. Vincent Tang agreed to head the committee to prepare the buyer’s guide. Anyone interested in helping is welcome.

A letter (see page 26) has been sent to vendors proposing that the Evergreen community wishes to obtain proposals for volume purchase of solar systems. The Invest-ment Tax Credit on solar expires at the end of the year and strict guidelines mandate gaining agreement between buyers and sellers very quickly; most likely before the end of September, 2008.

The tight timescale and the need to unify the purchase opportunity (to maximize the potential discount) mean evaluation and sourcing ac-tion must begin or these optimal purchasing conditions will be missed. The letter invites vendors to submit their information within one week to a panel composed of local residents. That panel will evaluate the data and issue a finding to the Ever-green community with their analysis and recommendation about which proposal is most advantageous for community buying groups. Vincent Tang has agreed to chair this short-term ad-hoc review panel. The plan is to have up to 10 individuals devote a maximum of two weeks to reviewing data and issuing a recommendation.

Those interested in serving on this short-term panel should contact Vincent at vincetang1@gmail.com.

An event to showcase vendors is being planned. A brainstorming session raised items for more discussion at the next meeting.

The next public meeting will be held July 30 from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. The purpose of this meeting is to work on the Clean Green Buyer’s Guide, the rest of the community-based issues list, the program for the Solar Showcase, the outline of the online community site, and to create subcommittees to support these efforts.

Agenda
6:30 p.m. Social

7:00 p.m. Call to order

1. Recap July 16 meeting - 5 minutes

2. Subcommittee meetings - 45 minutes

2.1 Clean Green Buyer’s Guide and the rest of the community-based issues list

2.2 Solar Showcase program

2.3 Online community site

3. Subcommittee reports and Q&A - 30 minutes

4. Create agenda for next meeting, to be held Aug. 13 at 6:30 p.m.., ending at 8:30 p.m., Mishra Community Room – 10 minutes

8:30 p.m. Adjourn

Please confirm your attendance so that we can ensure that enough chairs, meeting materials, etc. are available. Also, consider which subcommittee discussion you would like to attend.

Meeting Location
The conference room is called the Mishra room. On the campus map, click on reference #16 which is the Library/Educational Technology Center. You get into the entry door and the room is the first one to the left. Here is a link with directions to the college: http://www.evc.edu/maps.

The following link is a map of the actual campus. The meeting room is located on #16. This is an interactive map, so click on the link, go to #16 on the map to locate the room. http://www.evc.edu/maps/campus_map.htm.

The San Jose City/Evergreen Community College District has a free parking location for meeting attendees, waiving the daily $2 parking fee. Attendees have to park in parking lot 4A only. This parking lot is situated behind the building.

The following letter is being distributed to Bay Area solar system vendors. For those interested in installing a solar solution this year, a great buying opportunity may be in the offing.

—Mike Alvarado

Volume Purchasing Opportunity for Residential Solar Applications
The Evergreen community wishes to receive proposals from companies for group purchase and installation of solar systems in Evergreen area residences, both single family and attached dwellings. Proposals must be sent electronically to Evergreen resident, Mr. Vincent Tang at vincetang1@gmail.com by 9:00 AM on 31 July 2008.
Proposals should address:

• company history, strengths and advantages of solutions,

• references,

• financing options,

• minimum number of residences,

• cost per kilowatt hour,

• volume discounts and conditions under which these discounts are offered, e.g., installation by a certain date,

• aesthetics, e.g., solar tiles versus solar panels,

• warranties,

• certification,

• installation including site preparation,

• proposal should account for wire, lugs, disconnects mounts, etc.,

• example savings for quantity of system purchase, i.e., rough % per system discount,

• all rebate estimates, total estimated system cost, and tax benefits,

• comments of requirements for project success,

• Percentage of renewable proposed

• Panel type

• Panel efficiency

• Panel warranty in years

• Panel cost

• Inverter(s) model

• Inverter(s) size

• Inverter warranty in years

• Inverter efficiency

• Inverter cost

• Charge controller model

• Controller size

• Controller efficiency

• Controller warranty in years

• Controller cost

• Battery bank capacity

• Battery bank warranty in years

• Battery bank costs

• Minutes of runtime based on 110v, 40AMP load

The Evergreen community realizes that vendors are being asked to propose solutions in a short amount of time and without strict guidance. There are large differences in solutions for $400,000 townhouses and $750,000 detached single family residences. Power bills do not scale linearly between residences. We also understand that as vendors, solutions focus will be on the technology they are familiar with, how it works, and their deployment experience; all these data are valuable to consider in this evaluation. Moreover, we wish to enable vendors to provide as good of information as possible for the specific content, i.e., residential installations in the Evergreen area.

Therefore, here are some baseline specifications to use for an average detached single family dwelling. Variations from these assumptions can then be used to create proposed solutions with associated discounts.

The average home is 3,000 square feet, has 4 bedrooms, a gas furnace, stove, and water heaters. 1/7 of the homes have a pool. The average annual power bill is $700 (without pool) to over $2,500 (with pool and heavy air conditioning usage. The home is located in a community that is on grid and is eligible for net metering, peak usage, and other billing arrangements with the utility company. Both battery-based and battery independent systems are acceptable.

Proposals must be valid for until 5:00 PM PDT 15 October 2008. These proposals will be evaluated by a panel of knowledgeable Evergreen residents who may represent themselves or an organization such a homeowners association. No panel member will have any remunerative relationship with any solar vendor. The panel will review the information, consult the proposers as needed, and generate a recommendation to the Evergreen community. The panel will be leveraging existing public information generated in response to Mayor Reed's recent call for proposals. The panel will leverage the Mayor's work and extend it with additional due diligence. The link to this information is: http://www.sanjoseca.gov/mayor/ goals/environment/Solar/solaroptions.asp.

The panel’s recommendation, while advisory, will be valuable to buying groups since the panel has expertise and credibility as dedicated community members. This recommendation will be released electronically to the Evergreen community at 9:00 AM on 12 August 2008. Buying groups and individuals within Evergreen are already aware of this scheduled posting and they are prepared to study these recommendations as soon as they are available.

Thank you in advance for your interest in providing solar solutions in collaboration with the Evergreen community.

Mike Alvarado
Evergreen resident