Join The Solar Power Movement

Archive for the ‘Solar Power Business’ Category

You know that solar module training cart I’ve been talking about? Well we did get the PO from University of Tennessee to proceed with the construction. Yahoo! My very first solar project. While it is not earth shattering and somewhat small it carries great significance for me and for Solar TEK Nashville in particular. You see we weren’t the only solar energy company on site that day at the TVA energy conference at the Opryland Hotel. But it was SolarTEK Nashville that got the high five from Tennessee Solar Institute to bid on a training module for their ongoing classroom solar training program. YAHOO! again.

Here are a few pictures of the project so far. The steel frame fabrication was professionally done by Luke Ash of Impacting Technologies in Lebanon Tennessee. Like did an excellent job of understanding the scope of this project and went beyond just doing the work, he became a partner in the process. I highly recommend Luke at Impacting Technologies for any kind of metal fabrication, be it aluminum, sheet metal or construction steel.

All I am waiting for to finish this solar training cart project are a few components that are on back order from SunWise Distributing. The the customer and I will meet on January 4th for him to take possession of the cart and cargo trailer.

What do you think so far? I am excited to have this little project on my resume’. The client, Tennessee Solar Institute will also display the SolarTEK Nashville logo on the cargo trailer that hauls the solar training cart from city to city. What great advertising that will be for us.

Thanks

Stanley Davenport

Designed by Stanley on Solidworks

I think it was back in early July when TVA put on a solar energy conference at the Opryland Hotel that we got approached by Earl from the Tennessee Solar Institute to design and build a training module for the very same classes I had attended in April of 2011.  Earl was one of the instructors and just out of nowhere he walks up to our booth and asks if we would be interested in the project.  He also offered to put our company logo on the cargo trailer that the training cart would be hauled around in. WOW!  So right away I went to work on a design and all the configurations to make it happen.

I installed a defunct copy of Solidworks, a 3D modeling software program and after modeling up a few of the components, module, inverter, battery and the like, I designed a frame that I thought would do the trick.

Now the PV configuration is to have the following components:

1 -  2225219 WSS Outback Power Center GTFX2524/1, 2,500 watts, 120VAC  GFX2524/1 Pre-Wired Solar Power Center

1 – Outback GFX2524 Grid Inverter

1 – MNE125ST-R Midnite Outback 125amp DC/120VAC

1 -  Outback HUB-4 Communication Manager

1 -  Outback RTS – Remote Temp Sensor

1 -  Outback MATE Remote Monitor & control

* System Monitor Gives Instant Status and “Percent of Full” Battery Info

* ETL and C-ETL Listed Midnite Solar E-Panel

* AC and DC Input Breakers

* Up to Nine AC or DC Breaker Knockouts for Optional Equipment

* AC and DC Lightning Arrestors

* Inverter Bypass Switch Allows Choice of Generator / Grid or Inverter Output

* Easy to Connect Color Coded Buss Bars for AC and DC Connections

* Multiple Available Knockouts for Conduit Attachments

* Knockout for Optional GFCI AC Outlet

* Single System Grounding Point

* Clearly Labeled Connection Points for AC and DC Input and Output

* Fully Assembled and Tested by Experienced Factory Trained Technicians

* All Required Internal Cables and Connectors

Additional components:

1 9541875 Outback Flexnet FN-DC System Monitor

1 3630011 Morningstar Prostar PS-30M Charge Controller

2 8530002 MNEPV-30 30 amp DC Breaker 150VDC DIN, 13mm

2 1977185 Astronergy 185 watt Mono Module Silver MC4 CHSM5612M-185440

1 9999404 MC4 Branch Cable Coupler – 2 Male 1 Female

1 9999403 MC4 Branch Cable Coupler – 2 Female 1 Male

1 9902032 MC4 10 AWG-PV Wire – 30′ cable extension

2 9920013 4/0 – 60″ Battery Cable, Dual Kit (1 red, 1 black)

1 9990030 Battery Bank (2 6V batteries) UPG 200aH @ 12VDC 2,400 watt hours

Trailer

1 Look / Hallmark 6′W x 6′H x 12′L ,Black or White, Cargo Trailer – double axle – road ready.

Mobile Cart

1 Welded mobile steel cart PV equipment ready from above list painted UT Orange.

*2″ square steel tube and 1-1/2″ steel angle construction. Phnumatic wheels each with 200 lb

capacity rating. Two swivel and 2 rigid with brakes.

* 3/4″ thick cabinet grade component mounting area.

After several days of mulling over what I had learned from the NABCEP training and digging around in my solar text book I came of with the price to build the system.

I shot them a price and waited.  After about three weeks I sent Earl an email asking about the status of our quote and if they were still interested. Guess what?

They accepted my full bid and even said that they wanted to add a couple of more items to the mix so were asking for more money to do this.

MAN O MAN!  My first solar powered sale. Cha Ching$.

The hotel project I was writing about is also making progress. We are at a point of revising how he heats the indoor swimming pool. Currently there is a large capacity on-demand electric water heater doing all the work. I am proposing that we take this out of the equation and replace it with a gas fired on-demand water heater coupled with some major overhaul improvements.

I want to avoid going solar thermal by adding pool heater modules on the roof. This would only take away from the hotel looking at the overall solar PV possibilities. So I am sacrificing that potential sale for an even greater ROI on my involvement.

The proposal is to do the above switcharoo on the water heaters but re-plumb the pool through and existing unused 120 gallon gas fired water heater just sitting in the mechanical room.  Providing it is in good shape this would heat the pool water up to the state specified temperature and then as it passed though the on-demand gas heater it would get and extra boost before mixing with the body of water in the pool.

The other side of this fix-it equation is to keep the heated water at the pool surface during after hours. The pool closes at 10PM and opens again at 10AM. So I have a 12 hour window to combat the dehumidifier from sucking all that hot steamy air out of the room and replacing it with fresh air.  What to do, what to do.

Well a pool cover comes to mind the first thing. But I don’t want to add the burden of having the maintenance guy going in the pool room twice per day and manhandling 4-6 insulated panels.  I am searching for the idea of having post mounted from the floor to the ceiling at several locations around the pool. In between these post would be a blind or thermal barrier that pulled up and down depending on the time of day.  If I can reduce his pool heating bill from $15,000.00 to $5,000.00 per year then they may be inclined to go solar on the reat of the electric bill.

Now if I could figure out a way to offset those rooms heater/ac units.

What are your thoughts? Any engineers out there that would like to know the the details and offer suggestions?

Thanks

Stanley

Good news. But before I tell you let me fill you in on what happened a couple of weeks ago. On December 27th 2010 I was a guest on our local radio station. It was the talk portion, early morning for about 25 minutes. The host, Mr. Gregory, asked me several questions about solar and I was able to elaborate on the advantages and the great win-win situation that solar power really is. I wasn’t even nervous.

Out of that experience I received a couple of phone calls. One appointment ensued.  An older man that gets up with the chickens was listening and told his daughter who told her husband. Man, don’t you just love word of mouth advertising?  The called and we got together about cutting their electric bill by using solar modules. We are on our second meeting and I am providing education materials and references to help get them over the hump. The husband is ready to write a check for $45,000.00 but wants to see what kind of interest rate we can get him though our sources. That would be Regions Bank.

It’s really looking good and I am soooo excited about making my first solar power sale. What a way to start off a new fiscal year.

A few weeks ago I fond out from the Nashville solar company that I am repping for that someone I had sent out the mailers to called and wanted to have an appointment to talk about solar on his business. (note to self: I really feel like they weren’t going to tell me about it). Anyway. We called the owner and set an appointment. After a walk through of his hotel facility and gathering up 10 months of electric bills we set out to put together a plan to get solar power on this building.

The business is paying out over $5,000.00 dollars per month in electric bills. Most of the problem as we have learned is contributed to 3 areas. They have an indoor swimming pool that must be maintained at certain regulatory settings and the room the pool is in must constantly be dehumidified. With an exchange of fresh air every so many minutes. The other area is the individual room HVAC units. They are heat pumps with resistance strips as backup heat. When you combine all this together you are looking at a good 80KW per month base power demand.

The local electric company charges a higher rate per KWH for anything above 50KW per month. A whopping 13.55 per kilowatt hour. So our mission is to get things under the 50 kw bar. How can we do this?

Let’s start with the pool. An open body of heated water. A large bath tub if you will. It gets heated by what amounts to a industrial size on-demand electric water heater. This uses about 26KW at any given time when engaged.  Cover the pool as much and as often as possible. This would be a hassle for the staff and owner to fool with day-in and day-out. But would save a significant amount of money over a years time. However, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year someone would have to cover the pool at 10:00 PM and uncover it at 9:00 AM. It is doable is put into a daily maintenance plan. How many KW would this save. There is no real street level way of calculating it. Would just have to do it an see.

Next is a more practical approach and that is put a timer on the water heater. Set it so as to keep the pool at the minimum state regulated requirement. So for some time of the day it would be shut off completely. It would be easy to figure percentage wise as to the possible KW that would be saved in this option. The heater is off 30% then they would reduce energy consumption by about 20%. Because there would be an initial draw on current required to bring up the temperature of the water up the savings would not be a 1-to-1 ratio.

Third and best option is apply solar thermal to the equation. I propose that by adding a good sized solar thermal water heating package to the mix the owner would cut the cost of heating his pool by 100% after ROI time of 3 years.

Coupled with a 60KW PV system the whole package would run in the neighborhood of $410,000.00. By using the escalated depreciation schedule plan they would have the system paid out in 5 years.

What do you think? Is this something you are familiar with? Do you have experience with hotel facility energy consumption? I wold like to hear what your think. Leave a pertinent comment.

=======================================================

=======================================================

Back when I was sending out mailers to various members of the Chamber, I encountered a person that was on the local electric company board of directors. He sent me a friendly email about how they were in favor of clean coal and sort of suggested that he had done enough study on solar to “know it won’t work”. That suggested to me that within the foundation of the local electric company there exists opposition to people going solar. I hope this just isn’t true but I am experiencing difficulty with my very first encounter to help a local hotel client get started in the energy evaluation process. It looks like the local electric company is dragging it’s feet. A hotel has lots of variables and I want to get the best over all picture of how their energy is being used.

So with permission from the client I went over to the local electric company and inquired about billing and formulas for determining peak charges and so forth. In the process I learn that they would put a monitor on the clients transformer and help see how much power is being used at different times of the day.  In addition to the monitor I learned that they would do a total energy audit through TVA and it could result in KWH credits being given to the client under certain conditions. So I passed this “good news” onto my client and he proceeded to make phone calls to his account representative in order to get the ball rolling on these services.

Well, that was over a week ago and my client has made repeated calls and left messages without any acknowledgment from the local electric company whatsoever. Now yesterday 11/8/2010, my client called me frustrated about the situation. He already feels like he is getting shafted by the electric company and is being over charged for power.

Do I get involved between my client and the electric company? Should I cry foul play and see if  the Tennessee Valley Authority knows about local utilities dragging their feet?

What do you think.

We, the solar energy company I represent, is putting in a call to a higher up personnel to get things moving. Sometimes you just gotta know who to call.

FOLLOW THIS LINK IS YOU WANT TO START YOUR OWN SOLAR ENERGY BUSINESS.

Well, I’ve long since wanted to attend the Louise Mandrel Home Show that takes place in Nashville TN each year. The company I am representing had a booth and I got to do a little hawking on Saturday.

What are my thoughts, what did I learn? Our booth was crowded. We did have a pretty cool set up with a solar panel and SHW system. The SHW installer guy built a stand wtih a solar panel on top soaking in the ambient light. That was being inverted to AC which was powering a couple of heat bulbs below in a box. The bulbs were heating up the water in a solar water heater panel which was being used to make coffee and tea.

We had a very small corner over in the far back of the show room. Right across from us was a couple of older ladies with a foot cushion booth. They would keep drawing attention away from us before I could even make eye contact with people walking in our direction.  So there were five of us at times standing in an area smaller than 4′ x 8′  Maybe one out of five persons approached us with a view to wanting to know about solar. Most of the time the wanted a price quote based on the square footage of their home. Well you can’t do that, or at least we don’t have a formula for that yet. Seems like it would not be that difficult.

(note to self: work on spreadsheet to come up with formula for determining PC price per square foot quote)

Other folks were just grabbing anything that was free, pen, or fliers or business cards. Some were only shooting the breeze about some aspect about solar that was unique to their own circumstances.  After a while I started talking to people just strolling by and asking them is they knew about solar or if they had any questions.  This worked to some degree. It allowed me to speak about what I learned so far which really helps to get it firmly etched in my own mind.

However, these are just “maybe leads”.  They are not targeted leads. I mean we had a sign up that said we were giving away a free 1Kw PV system. Well of course people are going to fill in an entry form even if they don’t know what a 1Kw PV system is.  Several of the folks I spoke to lived in another state. Not going to travel to Maine or South Carolina , or Alabama to do a quote.

While at the show I did a tour of the kinds of vendors and saw a nice cross-section of companies with plenty of good quality products. Some were more of the flea market caliber, but whatever, right.

I am formulating a mind set about this getting customers, no matter what the product. Working a booth at a show or fair or on the street corner is still cold calling and this does not have a sustainable level of viability. In short it barely works if at all. To be successful you must have people coming to you already informed about your product and ready to purchase.

I would rather be the only worm in a small pond of fish than with a colony of worms in a large lake. You know what I am saying here. To lure people to you sales page, your ad in the local paper, your voice on the radio, you need to start right in your own neighborhood. Locally. Which I’ve been doing by going house to house in good areas. But whose home during the day? Retired people who say “oh I’m too old to think about that”. Or kids with no parents around, which when I find this I get back in the truck as fast as possible and move on.

To get targeted leads you must help them qualify themselves by providing a way for them to think that they can not get by another month without looking into this solar power thing. It needs to be on the local radio station, the local newspaper and any other avenue available on a local level.

For example. Today I have to drive 72 miles one way to a guy that call our office because the company he works for is installing 4 million $$$ worth of solar panels on the company property. Good for that company. They see the light. But the guy that called and about solar live in a home that values about $83,000.00 on 25 acres way out in the county. He was told over the phone about how much a certain sized system will cost and still wanted to have us come down and talk about solar. In my eyes this is a qualified lead. AI just may be able to do business today.

We’ll see. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Well, today I started making contact from the leads I got from the Living Green Expo last Saturday. I only came away with three as I don’t want to be spending so much money on fuel running all over the place.

This morning I went into Nashville and did a site evaluation. The home owner has a perfect roof area. It faces almost due south. It’s not too steep and only minimal shading in the early spring. But she did want panels on that side of the home. So I looked at what is available from an East-West orientation. Not too good here. She has some dormers and a couple of areas that stick out from the main roof. Maybe I can get a small 1.38Kw system by spreading out the panels onto different areas. All will be getting the Eastern sunshine for the most part.

If she would reconsider using the front of the home then we would be looking at about 4 Kw system. Better for them and for me.

On the way to the call I had to floor it as I merged onto the interstate. One of my door magnets flew off and drifted to the shoulder of the road. When I went back after the call I could not find it. Man! those things are $40.00 each.  @#%*%@#.

More to come.

Well today, after three days of designing a four page letter, 36 hours printing 400 copies of the four page letter, front & back at a cost of over $250.00, another two days folding the letter, $65.00 for the 400 addressed envelopes, and them another day stuffing the envelopes and then another 6 hours stamping the sealed package with the metering postage stamp I have finally finished my first bulk mailing.

This was sent out to businesses and individuals that are members of the local Chamber of Commerce.

I have another 425 to go. But I’m going to wait for the first batch to make it to their destinations and by Thursday of next week I will start calling each recipient and see if they got the mailer and strike up a conversation about solar energy.

I sat down this morning and devised how many panels, or solar water heating systems I would need to sell in order to generate $3,000.00 per week of activity. With my commission rate being cut in half I need to sell twice as much as before. So to meet my financial goal it will require for me to close the deal on an approximately two 3.0Kw sized system plus three 80 gallon SHW installations per week.

I think I am talking myself out of this as an occupation. The real way to make money in this business is to move where people want solar power and fight the competition or open a solar energy store and have offer workshops and seminars to educate the masses on the advantages of solar.

Last week I joined with the local Chamber of Commerce in hopes of finding a market to promote solar power to. For the past week I’ve been working on a mailer to send out to Chamber list of members.

As of today I am waiting on the envelopes to be printed. My first mailing will be 400.

I spent over 10 hours yesterday harvesting emails from the Members area of the the Chamber website. They said they could not give this to me with the mailing list because of an FTC rule. But if the email addresses were in published in the directory that I could solicit to them.

Here is the thing. I’ve been going door to door and business to business but I am finding that people are just not home or are too busy or are just not interested. The very few that find solar interesting are not calling or do not at the time seem to want to pursue a conversation about it. So I am just stepping up the pace a little and using other means to get the word out.

Today, August 26 2010 I am finishing the first leg of the snail mailing. I will then build a squeeze page with an opt-in box on it. From there I will send out a brief message about soalr to all the emails from the Chamber. If they are interested then they can go to the squeeze page and sign up for a series of solar power messages. We’ll see how this works.