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Wireless Solar Space Station
Technology brought down to earth to power our buildings.
Energy Independence
Initiative to Create a Sustainable Future!
Table of Contents
1.
Public Power “MuniSolar” Partnership
A Municipal
Energy Strategy
2. Green Technology
Park: Innovation Center & Business Incubator
A Sustainable Technology Training Campus and Environmental Entrepreneurs
Education
&
Training Business Center
3.
Solar Electric Distributed Power Generation Program
Solar
Photovoltaic and a Municipal Green Roof Program
4. Solar Thermal
Cooling and Heating Program
Solar-Thermal
Air Conditioning
5. Super
Energy-Efficient Buildings Program
Bioclimatic
Architecture and Green Buildings
6. Solar Electric
Transportation Green Commuter Program
Neighborhood Electric
Vehicle and Electric Bicycle Program
7. Public Power
“MuniSolar” Financing Strategy
A Municipal Energy
Savings and Financing Program
Green City Plan 21
Public Power
“MuniSolar” Energy Independence Partnership
California’s ongoing crises of rising energy costs and growing traffic
congestion, along with the quandaries of energy security, terrorism, and
earthquakes, are making politicians, planners, and citizens nervous.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has called for “controlling our energy
future” and established a multi-billion-dollar energy- efficiency and
renewable-energy program. The CPA has established a policy to diversify
the state’s power resource supply by establishing a 20-percent goal for
diversified renewable energy during the next two decades. This would
ensure a cleaner and more reliable energy strategy as well as
incentivize the development of a flourishing global environmental
industry in California. The former head of the California Power
Authority, David Freeman, said recently, “There’s only one real source
of life on this earth and that is the GTI. We’re dumb to get the rays
free of charge, but not figure out how to use them in large quantities.
Soon as we do, Mother Earth will breathe a whole lot easier.”
To
counter the high energy cost charged by Investor-Owned Utilities (IOUs),
cities are considering and some are attempting to establish municipal
Public Power Programs, and in the process stimulate the development of
local environmentally-oriented enterprises and create new sustainable
“green” jobs. San Franciscans recently passed Proposition B, a
$100-million bond initiative that will pay for the installation of
solar-photovoltaic (PV) power-generating panels, wind turbines, and
energy conservation technologies on City property. Other cities have
established sustainable building programs. The Los Angeles Unified
School District and the Los Angeles Community College District are
discussing how to create green campuses with the bond financed projected
of $14 billion and $1.2 billion respectively. The Sacramento Municipal
Utility District is planning a 70-megawatt solar program for completion
by the end of the decade.
The
Green Technology Institute (GTI) of the Tom Bradley Legacy Foundation is
helping cities plan and develop a Public Power Energy Independence
Initiative. This Plan consists of a range of energy efficiency and
conservation strategies, along with the year-by-year accumulating
installation of solar electricity, solar cooling and heating, ‘solar
electric commuting,’ and retrofit and new solar-architecture and
green-building features. GTI will assist cities in the development of
local
Green
Technology Centers
to encourage the development of new local eco-entrepreneurs.
Green
Technology Park: Innovation Center & Business Incubator
The
establishment of a Green Technology Park will showcase the advanced
environmental technologies at the Green Innovation Center (GIC). The
GIC will be an education, learning, and training center for local
community and entrepreneurs on the “hands-on” applications of
sustainable technologies. The Green Business Incubator will assist in
the development of local environmental businesses and create local green
jobs. and help your city to play a role in the environmental technology
and green business revolution that will define the 21st
century. The Green Technology Park would specialize in demonstrating
and commercializing new and existing environmental technologies and
services, and training local residents for a range of new ‘green’
enterprises: solar-photovoltaic (PV) distributed electric generation,
solar-thermal applications including solar space cooling, solar water
desalination, solar ‘bioclimatic’ architecture and green design, and
solar-electric no-emissions transportation – new technologies that will
be very important to the world and to your city in the new ‘Solar
Century’ just begun. The Green Technology Park could become an ongoing
demonstration of and teaching campus for these solar-electric,
solar-HVAC, solar-water, and sustainable-mobility technologies – set in
an environment that is a model of ‘green building’ and active and
passive solar design.
The
Green Technology Park will be operated by a local community development
corporation partner selected by the Green Technology Institute of the
Tom Bradley Legacy Foundation.
Key
components of the local Green Technology Park may include system
development research, business development, education/training, and
assembly/light manufacturing in these areas:
1.
Sustainable Energy/Power
·
Solar-Photovoltaic Assembly,
·
Solar-Photovoltaic Electric Power Generation for municipal, industrial,
commercial, and residential
facilities.
·
Solar Thermal Vacuum Tube Assembly
·
Solar Thermal Heat Process
·
Solar Domestic Hot Water System
·
Solar Air Conditioning
·
Solar Medical Autoclave
·
Solar Water Pumping/Brushless DC Motor Assembly
2.
Sustainable Building and Habitat Applications
·
Solar Smart House Development
·
Solar Televillage Development,
·
Solar Bioclimate Architecture/Green Building Design
3.
Sustainable Clean Water Applications
·
Solar Waste Water Distillation,
·
Solar Clean Water Pasteurization,
·
Solar Desalination,
·
Solar Salt Pond Technology
4.
Sustainable Mobility Applications
·
Solar Electric Bicycle Assembly
·
Neighborhood Vehicle Assembly;
5.
Sustainable Urban Agriculture Applications
·
Aeroponic Technology Development.
·
Solar Hydroponic Greenhouse Technology
.
Solar Electric Distributed Power Generation Program
Imagine that many of the under-utilized and under-valued gray roofs,
south-facing walls, and parking lots of your city’s public, industrial,
and commercial buildings and homes have been transformed into micro
solar-electric energy stations.
Photovoltaic
Solar-Electric Power Generation on Roofs, Walls and Parking Lots
A major thrust of the
GreenCity
program is to reduce the operating costs of buildings in the city,
particularly the cost of energy, through the deployment of clean solar
and sustainable energy technologies and through well-conceived and
executed energy-efficiency techniques and technologies.
Sustainable-energy and energy-efficiency technologies do more with
less, brilliantly exploiting panoply of energy- and cost-saving
techniques and capabilities.
Solar-electric distributed generation can take many
forms and be built into a variety of structures in your city. Some of
these possibilities are described in the sections that follow dealing
with various applications.
Solar New Town’
Development: Building-Integrated Photovoltaic on South-Facing Roofs
Generating Solar Electricity
Residential Solar Electric
Installation with Net Metering Program
Solar Thermal Cooling and Heating Program
Solar Air Conditioning and Space Heating using Advanced Evacuated Tubes
A
significant part of the solution to California’s energy woes will entail
cooling our buildings with the GTI. It is not a coincidence that the
demand for cooling, and the electricity that powers most of it, is
greatest at the times the GTI drenches our buildings’ roofs and walls
with the most intense heat – heat that can be transformed into Solar
Cooling.
10-Ton Solar Air
Conditioning at Audubon Nature Center in Los Angeles Displaces 15 kW of
Peak Demand
“We recently installed a 10-ton solar air conditioning
system on in Los Angeles at the Audubon Nature Center. The system
displaces 15 kW of peak load demand off the grid. It also provides
space heating during the winter and hot water throughout the year.
Solar HVAC technology is already proven and has been running
successfully in Sacramento for more than 15 years without problems,”
states James Bergquam, principal of Bergquam Energy Systems. “Other
countries, notably Japan, Germany, and China, have large solar
absorption systems operating with good results.”
As global weather becomes warmer and energy costs
skyrocket, the demand for energy to cool offices, hotels, schools, and
hospitals will soar – particularly in the hotter areas and urban regions
of Southern California. Solar cooling will become a much-needed, “hot”
new technology, declares GTI’s Hamasaki.
Super Energy-Efficient Buildings Program
Super Energy
Efficient Building
Solar ‘bioclimatic’ design principles are an important part of the
GreenCity
Plan.
Bioclimatic design seeks to optimize the use of the ambient energies and
conditions of a structure’s locale to enhance the quality of life for
its occupants – and to create a dramatic and beautiful new
architecture. The artful combining of built-environment features and
the creations of nature – trees, foliage, and the butterflies and birds
– are some of the exciting specific characteristics of bioclimatic
design and the structures and spaces it creates. The Green Partnership
applies sustainable bioclimatic design principles to the greening of our
cities and towns.
Solar Bioclimatic Architecture
Solar Electric Transportation Green Commuter Program
Solar Neighborhood
Electric Vehicles (NEVs) and electric bicycles are an underutilized but
potentially great boon to low- and moderate-income short-distance
commuters, students, retirees, and certain fleet operators who want to
forego the considerable expense of using autos to meet part or all of
their transportation needs. GTI’s
Green Commuter
Program envisions promoting NEVs and E-bikes; providing
solar-photovoltaic charging stations (e.g., inductive charging and
quick-charging/super-charging) for these vehicles; and manufacturing
electric bicycles and NEVs to reduce energy consumption, traffic
congestion, air pollution and carbon-dioxide emissions, and personal
transportation costs, in the process providing truly affordable
point-to-point transportation for lower- and moderate-income workers.
Many ‘clean air’ programs such as electric-auto sales and incentives are
targeted to a handful of upper-income commuters and have produced
virtually no useful impact on traffic congestion or pollution.
The
Pathway Neighborhood Electric Vehicle (NEV) at a Solar-Charging ‘GTI
Station’
Affordable
electric-powered ‘light transportation’ and the electric charging
infrastructure to power it is a natural package – the
Green Commuter
and GTI Stations
program. ‘PV and Parking’ photovoltaic generating modules on
lightweight structures installed over auto parking lots and atop auto
parking structures is another option, to add sustainable energy
production to the not-very-sustainable arena of traditional gasoline
transportation. These ‘PVarking Lots’
also will shade and keep cars cool for their owners, and prevent the
emissions of polluting volatile organic compounds from parked cars on
hot days.
“MuniSolar” Partnership member Ultimate Motroller Corporation, developer
of the GTI E-Bike, has developed a fleet of highly efficient
direct-current-motor electric bicycles for the Green Commuter Program
and is at work on the next generation of electric neighborhood
vehicles. UMC’s goal is to find a location to assemble these bicycles
and vehicles for the Green Commuter program and create new jobs for the
community, including community and regional residents who will purchase
the electric bicycles! The Green Commuter Program was first initiated
in the City of Palm Springs and was featured as a cover story in the
American Solar Energy Society’s Solar Today magazine, July-August
1998: “Solar Bicycling in Palm Springs.” Another Green Commuter program
has been installed at Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo by mechanical engineering
students.
Public Power”MuniSolar” Financing Strategy
The Public Power “MuniSolar” Partnership proposes a
Municipal Energy Savings and Renewable Energy Reinvestment Authority in
your city to develop a comprehensive plan to reduce energy consumption
through efficiency and use half of the savings to install a range of
renewable power generation technologies. The Municipal Energy Savings
and Renewable Energy Reinvestment Authority would reinvest 50 percent of
all documented energy savings, up to a limit set by the City, to finance
further energy-efficiency and sustainable-energy-technology capital
projects in the following year. The initial ‘seed’ financing would come
from the California Power Authority $1.5 billion bond financing program.
Example
of a Green Campus PV Solar Electric Roof Application
Your city must take control of its energy costs – the
second-highest line item expense after salaries – and its energy
destiny. The leaders must establish a policy to reduce energy costs by
60 to 80 percent in the next 25 years through energy efficiency,
cogeneration, and renewable energy.
GTI proposes a Public
Power “MuniSolar” Partnership Program to develop a renewable-energy and
sustainable-technology “project-based teaching and learning-by-doing”
program for your city’s entrepreneurs. Financing of the program will
come from energy savings and from funds available for project-based
learning programs. The following programs are two potential financing
sources to consider:
· Public Leadership Solutions for Energy (PULSE)
Program of the California Consumer Power and Conservation Financing
Authority. CSULA would establish a Green Power Energy Savings Program
to develop a comprehensive plan to reduce energy consumption through
efficiency, cogeneration, and renewable energy resources. The financing
would come from the California Consumer Power and Conservation Financing
Authority (the “Power Authority” or CPA), established to help ensure
reliable and affordable power for California, through the CPA’s PULSE
program. The program will finance energy efficiency and clean or
renewable energy for on-site use. The plan targets up to $1.5 billion
for public buildings. GTI’s Green Technology Partners will assist in
the preparation of the application.
· City Energy Management Program. A Third-Party-Financing Shared-Savings
Strategy to enable private investors to take over 80% of the
cost of the installation of the system in the form of write-downs, 15%
state tax credits, 10% investment tax credits, and five-year accelerated
depreciation on a long-term negotiated contract. The concept would be
to share the cost-of-energy savings with your, and in time your city
will own the solar power plants. This would limit the out-of-pocket
investment your city would need to finance the project.
Under your leadership,
GTI would like to work with your city to provide its expertise and
experience to create a sustainable society through solar technology and
innovation. We must understand and learn from our natural world
ecosystem. “There is no waste in our natural world. Waste from one
organism is food for another. Nature continues to cycle and recycle
organically. The only input is solar energy.”
Les Hamasaki,
Director of the Green Technology Institute, Tom Bradley Legacy
Foundation and Senior Advisor to the Green Institute for Village
Empowerment (GIVE) and the Green Valley Initiative for the Inland
Empire. He is also President of SUN Utility Network, Inc., a
sustainable planning and development company specializing in Green
Technology Park development for cities and villages throughout the
world. Mr. Hamasaki is a professional community and urban development
planner, and was involved with two 20-year plans (1975-95 and 1995-2015)
for the City of Los Angeles, the second largest city in the United
States. Hamasaki has served as Vice Chairman of the City of Los Angeles
Planning Commission and as an Airport Commissioner. Hamasaki served on
many community boards, including the Tom Bradley Foundation, the UCLA
Dashew International Student Center, and the Japanese American Community
and Cultural Center. He graduated from California State Polytechnic
University in Environmental Planning.
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