Sun Is The Future

Dear Friends, Visitors/Viewers/Readers,

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I was ecstatic upon reading this news that I’ve decided to take a break from our reporting on Feed-In-Tariff. Below is the reason:

Fantastic news! Talk about leadership and initiative! The California City Council of Lancaster unanimously approved changes to the city’s zoning code that require housing developers to install solar for all of their future new homes. This is the latest piece in what Republican Mayor R. Rex Parris described at the City Council meeting as a plan to make Lancaster, CA, “The solar capital of the universe.”

The official Residential Zones Update of Lancaster now specifies, along with a range of green building provisions, that new single family homes meet minimum solar system requirements in the same way that they must meet minimum parking space requirements. “The purpose of the solar energy standards is to encourage investment in solar energy on all parcels in the city, while providing guidelines for the installation of those systems that are consistent with the architectural and building standards of the city.” It is further intended to “to provide standards and procedures for builders of new homes to install solar energy systems in an effort to achieve greater usage of alternative energy.”

For lots of 7,000 sq ft or more residential homes, they must have a solar system of 1.0-1.5 kw (kilowatts). Rural  residential homes of up to 100,000 sq ft must have a system of at least 1.5 kw.

Besides some simple, commonsense rules for both roof-mounted and ground-mounted system, there are also some interesting issues:

• A builder’s model home must show the kind of solar system the builder will offer.
• Builders of subdivisions will be able to aggregate the houses’ requirements. If ten houses in a subdivision each have a one kilowatt requirement, the builder can install a single ten-kilowatt system, two five-kilowatt systems or four 2.5-kilowatt systems.
• If a housing tract is built in phases, each phase must meet the requirement.
• Multifamily developments can meet the requirement with a rooftop system or a system on a support or shade structure.
• Builders “may choose to meet the solar energy generation requirement off-site by providing evidence of purchasing solar energy credits from another solar-generating development located within the city.”

Lancaster, with a population of about 150,000, built approximately 200 new homes in 2012 and on tract to build just as many (or more) in 2013, which translates into 200 more kilowatts of rooftop solar.  ”In Lancaster, a solar installer is issued a permit within fifteen minutes,” Mayor Parris said, “but eight miles south in Palmdale, it takes two months.”

Allow me to introduce you to Mayor Lancaster in this next video clip:

Parris’ next targets will be:

• Requiring all new homes to meet LEED certification standards
• Requiring grey water systems on all new homes
• Requiring, when partner BYD’s batteries are certified, battery systems for new homes’ solar systems so they would be energy-independent for up to four days, and
• Using LED bulbs and batteries so the city’s street lights will be entirely off-grid.

Parris commented, “The salvation of this planet, if it is not already too late, will be from the bottom up, and there is no reason Lancaster can’t be the example for the world.”

Hear! Hear! Mayor Parris! We need more local leaderships and city mayors such as Mayor Parris. Will political leaders in San Francisco, Los Angeles and various other parts of the USA also consider taking this step, doing the right thing for all of our future?

~have a bright and sunny day~

Gathered, written, and posted by sunisthefuture-Susan Sun Nunamaker

Any of your comments or suggestions will be welcomed at sunisthefuture@gmail.com

Homepage: http://www.sunisthefuture.net

 

 

 

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Dear Readers,

If you are in favor of renewable,  clean, or solar energy, please sign this petition for FIT/CLEAN Program, accessible at http://sunisthefuture.net/?page_id=1065 Thank you very much.

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Dear Friends & Readers,

Did you ever read  that Dr. Seuss’ story of the Lorax when you were a kid?  ”I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees. I speak for the trees for they have no tongues.”–Dr. Seuss (The Lorax)

I suspect when the young Aidan Dwyer (of New York) first read this book, Dr. Seuss‘ words must have made a great deal of impression upon his curious mind.   For he subsequently designed/invented (when he reached age thirteen) the solar tree, a decorative means of producing solar energy using multiple solar panels which form the shape of a tree via assistance of poles.  This design of solar tree can also double as street lights, producing 50% more power than a flat solar power layout during winter and 20% more power during other seasons.

Such ingenious concept was further evolved, now also found around streets of Austria

, or through the lens of the industrial designers Ross Lovegrove and founder of Artemide Ernesto Gismondi,  utilizing the synergy between solar and LED technology, into something that is low in maintenance and yet high in performance and may be totally off-grid and even feed back any excess electricity back into the grid.  Some believes that such an evolved design of solar tree represents more than just a light, but also a humanitarian statement about how to harness the power for free and then give it back to the society. Manufactured by Italian lighting brand Artemide and designed by Ross Lovegrove, the Solar Tree (it was previously located outside of the MAK Museum in Vienna) opened to Londoners on May 24, 2012 at St. John’s Square will remain there until late September.  It is seen in the video clip below:

This (Lovegrove’s) Solar Tree installation has an array of LED lit solar pads held up by 20 green stems.  The Solar Tree contains embedded artificial intelligence that automatically switches the LED lights on after dark and is smart enough to decipher the appropriate light intensity with consideration of the natural light conditions and the battery’s energy level. Lovegrove’s Solar Tree is designed to work with both on and off grid applications;when connected to a grid, the Tree is able to feed back any excess electricity back into the grid. When connected to an off-grid application, the Tree is able to provide lighting for up to three days before its battery runs flat.

Let’s hope the challenges that we face during this time of transition into the renewable energy era will continue to provide us with inspirations for our perceptions of nature, function, and beauty.

~have a bright and sunny day~

written, gathered, and posted by sunisthefuture-Susan Sun Nunamaker, sunisthefuture@gmail.com

Homepage:   http://sunisthefuture.net

 

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