Copyright 2019 - The Energy Show, Barry Cinnamon

We’re talking about VAMPIRES on this week’s show — energy vampires.

I know, it’s not Halloween yet, but these little energy suckers are insidious. I guarantee that you have dozens of little devices plugged into your home that are using a small amount of standby power, sucking energy all day and night. It really adds up, and causes nightmares for energy geeks like me.

Research shows that these “plug loads” are about 1/3 of a home’s total energy consumption. We’re not talking about big appliances or lighting – but sneaky little things plugged in or wired in all around your home.

Think about what you have. Obvious vampire loads are devices like computers, routers, Wi-Fi repeaters, phone chargers, TVs, cable boxes, cable modems, and entertainment consoles. Less obvious vampires are things like security systems, motion detectors, appliances (anything with a clock and an illuminated LED). The really sneaky devices that you might not see include doorbell and thermostat transformers, WiFi thermostats (Nest), hot water and furnace ignitors, garage door openers, irrigation systems, outdoor lighting control systems, cordless vacuum cleaners, and pool timers.

To get a handle on this infestation, I went to every room with a Kill-A-Watt meter to measure the power consumption of each device. It added up to over 250 watts of 24×7 power — over $500 per year.

To learn more about these energy vampires — how to identify them, calculate their costs, and stamp them out — tune in to this week’s Energy Show.

Copyright 2019 - The Energy Show, Barry Cinnamon

To reduce greenhouse gas emissions we need to electrify all of our buildings. New electric appliances — such as heat pumps and induction stoves — are often less expensive to operate than conventional natural gas appliances. For example, at $2/therm for natural gas and $0.30/kwh for electricity, it costs about $1 to heat up a 65 gallon hot water tank for both gas and electricity. Add in rooftop solar and you can heat that tank for less than $0.25!

So from both an economic and environmental standpoint it absolutely makes sense to replace old gas appliances with new electric appliances. Except for one big problem: many older homes have a 100 or 125 amp electrical service — which is insufficient to run most domestic hot water heat pumps, heat pump HVAC systems (heating and cooling), induction electric stoves and level 2 electric vehicle chargers. Not to mention anything other than a relatively small (< 5 kw) rooftop solar power system.

The solution is to contact your electric utility to get an electric panel upgrade to a 200 amp system. Unfortunately, an electric panel upgrade is complicated. Every house is different — some homes have overhead wiring which is relatively easy to replace, and some homes are powered by underground wiring which can take many months and dollars to upgrade.

Navigating the utility and city regulations for electric service upgrades can be a nightmare. To help us understand these issues — as well as the shortcuts and rebates that are available from some utilities — our guest on this week’s show is Sue Kateley. Sue is the former Executive Director of CALSEIA (now known as CALSSA), and has also worked as the Chief of Staff for California State Senator Bradford.

Please listen up to this week’s Energy Show as Sue walks us through her personal experience with PG&E and her electrician as she cost-effectively completed an electric panel upgrade — and took advantage of some of the little-known incentives and procedures that can make this process much faster and cheaper.

Copyright 2019 - The Energy Show, Barry Cinnamon

Copyright 2019 - The Energy Show, Barry Cinnamon

Every time I fly into a city I’m amazed at the number of naked, white, empty flat commercial rooftops that should be producing megawatts of power. Even in solar friendly cities such as San Jose there are only a few blue rooftops that one can see from the air. On this week’s Energy Show we’ll be talking about the tremendous opportunity for installing solar on flat roof commercial buildings.

There are three reasons why commercial solar hasn’t grown as quickly as residential and utility solar. The first is customer economics: most commercial buildings are occupied by tenants who pay the electric bills, so the building owner does not have a compelling financial motivation to invest in solar to reduce the tenant’s operating costs. The second reason is that many building owners do not have the up-front capital for installing solar, nor do they have the long-term credit viability for a PPA or lease. The third reason is that, even with the ITC and low solar panel prices, the payback is still three to five years -- too long for businesses making shorter term investments.

Fortunately, technology for installing solar on flat roof commercial buildings has continued to improve, reducing the mounting system and labor costs substantially. These new mounting systems are able to maintain the roof’s structural integrity, while at the same time addressing seismic and water intrusion issues.

My special guest on this week’s Energy Show is Costa Nicalaou, CEO of PanelClaw. They have completed nearly 10,000 flat roof projects in 30 countries and over 2,000 permit offices. Please listen up as Costa explains PanelClaw’s newest products, and how they provide supporting engineering and permitting services to their network of commercial rooftop installers.

Copyright 2019 - The Energy Show, Barry Cinnamon

Cities and states all over the country are making a big push to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions in both new and existing buildings. Not only are these changes a necessity to slow down global warming trends, but in many cases building energy costs are also dramatically reduced.

Whole House Electrification (WHE), my latest favorite TLA (three letter acroynum) is accomplished by replacing all gas appliances (including your car) with cleaner and more efficient electric appliances such as heat pumps, EV chargers and electric induction stoves. LED lighting, better HVAC controls and upgraded insulation also help reduce building energy consumption.

But starting a WHE project can be daunting -- even for an energy geek like me. Conventional wisdom recommends a home energy audit. When I did my energy audit using the DOE’s Home Energy Advisor program it recommended adding insulation to my stucco walls (almost impossible), sealing my ducts (they were really old), upgrading my old furnace and replacing my noisy air conditioner. None of these recommendations were really right for me.

The reason is that traditional energy audits do not take into account the dizzying array of electric appliances, toys and embedded devices that power our 21st century lifestyle. Most of these energy audits are flat out wrong -- ignoring rooftop solar, battery storage, heat pumps and time-of-use electric rates. Combined, these new technologies provide significant savings for an electric home.

Luckily, I found a kindred soul, Steve Schmidt, a pioneer in the new energy analysis industry. Steve founded Home Energy Analytics, which uses smart utility meter data to figure out what is really going on with energy in your house. Please Listen Up to this week’s Energy Show for Steve’s approach to prioritizing and then reducing energy costs, as well as his insights into Whole House Electrification.

Copyright 2019 - The Energy Show, Barry Cinnamon

After your heating and cooling system, the next biggest energy hog in most homes is your swimming pool. I won’t feel bad if you skip this podcast if you don’t have a swimming pool — unless you’re an energy geek like me. My recent experiences addressing the energy problems in my old house really focused my attention on my swimming pool; in comparison, fixing my HVAC system was relatively easy (that’s the subject of another podcast).

Here is a summary of my annual pool expenses: $1,300 for pool pump electricity ($0.45/kwh), $1,800 for pool maintenance, $500 for evaporative water loss (1.5 cents/gallon), $100 every time I want to heat up the pool in the spring/fall for the weekend ($1.75/therm), and $10 every time I want to heat up the spa. I’m too busy on weekends to do the pool maintenance myself, and the pool’s oval shape is not conducive to a pool cover. So I focused on reducing my pool’s electricity and gas consumption.

It was surprisingly easy to cut my $1,300 electricity cost down to about $130 per year. First I installed a variable speed pump (about $1600) — if you have a pool, do this now. Second, since this pump is so quiet I run the pump at night during off-peak rates — currently $0.13/kwh. Third, with solar power on my roof my costs are down to about $65 per year ($0.07/kwh for solar electricity amortized over 25 years).

Keeping the pool at a comfortable temperature is usually more problematic…except for our family since my wife and I don’t swim, and the kids generally don’t care how cold the water is. But if you want to keep your pool comfortably warm in the spring and fall, the best option is a solar pool heating system that uses black plastic collectors mounted on your roof through which pool water is pumped. Note that if you have this type of system you will need to run your pool pumps during the middle of the day — which may be during peak electric rate times. Another option is a pool heat pump. Air to water heat pumps are good in warm and humid climates (not always best in hot and dry climates). If you are more concerned about heating a spa, a water to water heat pump (cooling the pool and heating the spa) might make sense.

For more about reducing your pool’s total operating costs so it’s no longer an energy hog, Listen up to this week’s Energy Show.

Copyright 2019 - The Energy Show, Barry Cinnamon

Upcoming electric rate changes mean that almost every home and business will eventually benefit from a battery connected to their solar system. These combined systems provide tangible economic benefits: time shifting energy use, energy arbitrage, preserving the benefits of net metering and demand charge reduction.

In a nutshell, battery storage systems help preserve the benefits of net metering. But because of the grid’s unreliability — coupled with upcoming Public Service Power Shutoffs in California — the vast majority of our residential customers are installing battery storage systems for backup power.

As our company got back into the energy storage business with lithium ion batteries, we did extensive research into battery systems and their compatible inverters, into manufacturers, into software and operating modes, and into the interconnection and incentive process. After almost two years of selling and installing battery storage systems we’ve gained a lot of wisdom — and made some mistakes along the way. To help our fellow contractors and our future customers, here are ten of our most systemic and painful battery storage installation mistakes:

1. Misunderstanding customer desires

2. Incomplete product offerings

3. Underestimating support and maintenance costs

4. Adding batteries to existing systems

5. If the CTs don’t fit, you’re in deep sh-t

6. Complicated backup panel wiring

7. Buggy software and firmware

8. Interconnection problems

9. Incentive delays

10. Battery warranty claims

For more insights into avoiding battery storage installation mistakes, please Listen Up to this week’s Energy Show.

Copyright 2019 - The Energy Show, Barry Cinnamon

When you fly into just about any city you will see hundreds of white commercial flat rooftops. These rooftops are just begging for solar panels to generate electricity for the building -- and reflect the heat to reduce the air conditioning load. With the 30% investment tax credit and new depreciation rules, the economics are pretty good. Paybacks are often less than five years with immediate positive cash flow for financed systems.

But marketing solar to commercial customers is challenging. Often the building is leased, with utility payments made by the tenant -- not the building owner. Although the installation of commercial rooftop solar is relatively straightforward, the marketing, sales and financing processes can be complex.

When I think of solar marketing I instantly think of Tor Valenza, AKA Solar Fred. He is the guy who has been wearing the hat for over ten years in the solar industry. Tor has build a terrific brand for himself, as well as a number of well known solar clients. Please Listen Up to this week’s Energy Show as Tor walks us through his five step program for commercial solar marketing.

Copyright 2019 - The Energy Show, Barry Cinnamon

To slow the global warming trend, a number of states have committed to the aspirational goal of 100% carbon-free energy. As a species that literally evolved from burning wood and hydrocarbons, how can we possibly run our modern lives and economy without fossil fuels?

We can indeed achieve this transition quickly and economically. First, by converting all power generation to renewable, non-carbon sources. And second, by converting all fossil-fuel burning vehicles and appliances to electricity. Steady progress towards these conversions is being made. For example, 32% of California’s retail power came from renewable energy in 2018. The state is well on the way to converting to 100% renewable electricity. Use of EVs is growing steadily, and new building codes mandate the use of rooftop solar and electric appliances instead of natural gas.

The challenge is with the existing stock of residential and commercial buildings. Homes and businesses predominantly use natural gas for space heating, hot water heating and cooking. That’s where the concept of Whole House Electrification (WHE) come in. WHE is conceptually simple: replace gas appliances with electric appliances. In reality, one needs an energy audit to prioritize these conversions, then hire five different specialty contractors to do the work: insulation, solar, HVAC, plumbing, electrical and pool. It can be a daunting task.

Fortunately there are some pioneers out there - one of whom is my friend Howard Wenger. Howard was also a pioneer in the solar industry, with stints at AstroPower, PowerLight and SunPower. Please listen up to this week’s Energy Show as Howard discusses his experiences as he converted his house to 100% electricity, supplied — naturally -- by solar.

Copyright 2019 - The Energy Show, Barry Cinnamon

In the early days of solar and storage, virtually every system used lead acid batteries to store daytime energy and use this energy at night. Although these systems functioned well, they required a lot of maintenance (you can tell old-time battery installers from the acid burns in their jeans), were quite heavy, had complicated control systems and had limited lifetimes. Net metering alleviated the need for battery storage. But now with changes in net metering, Time of Use (TOU) rates and poor grid reliability, batteries are experiencing a resurgence.

Part of the reason for this battery comeback is that new lithium ion battery storage systems overcome almost all the disadvantages of lead acid systems (they are still somewhat expensive). These systems are designed to be installed next to your solar inverter, have integrated battery management and control systems, and require no maintenance over their guaranteed 10 year lifespans.

Utilities are moving their peak electric rates from mid day to the late afternoon and evening when the sun doesn’t shine. With battery storage, customers can time-shift their energy use -- running their homes and businesses from stored energy in their battery, and replenishing that battery the next day when the sun is shining. Many of these battery systems can also provide backup power during a grid outage — or one of the “Planned Power Outages” that utilities implement to prevent power line-caused fires.

The best news is that many states, including California, provide rebates to reduce the costs of battery storage systems. Please tune in to this week’s Energy Show as Josh Weiner from Sepi Solar joins us to explain the codes and standards that apply to the installation of battery storage systems.