Appalachian Energy Blog

We finally get to talk publicly about an exciting project that has been keeping us busy for the last month or so. Our biggest regional Arby’s franchisee, “The Winning Team”, is taking a big step towards greater environmental and economic sustainability by going solar. In a few weeks we will have installed our solar hot water systems on every one of their 33 Arby’s franchises.

Today we got to shout about it with an inauguration ceremony for the first system - 4 panels on the roof of the Arby’s on Airport Road in Fletcher, NC, just south of Asheville. State Senator Joe Sam Queen, State Representative Bruce Goforth, Bill Moore, Mayor of Fletcher and many more local elected representatives were on hand, along with some of the folks from Arby’s corporate HQ who provide support for the 3000+ Arby’s throughout the country.

We decided that all-in-all it would be best to have the system up and running before the event, so Eric, Matt, CJ and Dave did a magnificent job getting everything working perfectly, and even our CEO (codenamed D-100) got in on the fun. Here’s a screenshot from the monitoring system we installed:

We are proud to be helping Arby’s help our environment, and helping their bottom line, too. The system has been installed under our RESCO program, which means we will own and maintain it and it is installed at no cost. Instead The Winning Team will pay us a monthly fee for their solar hot water, while they save money on their natural gas bills. So next time you’re thinking Arby’s, remember Arby’s is thinking solar!

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Recent press, ranging from the technical folks at NREL to the popular media of NBC has reminded all of us here at Appalachian Energy why we get out of bed in the morning (besides the irony of selling heating products in the coldest office in town): that Solar Thermal makes economic sense! The decision to invest may seem daunting all the same though, especially when vague timelines of cost recovery sometimes (poorly) range a decade.

Enter the new fresh perspective for the week, borrowed from the author Tom Lane. Lets highball it for good measure, saying it will take a full 8 years to recover your investment costs of a solar water heating (SWH) system. Over that time, you will be putting anywhere from 70 to 95% of your typical annual heating bills back in your pocket, fully getting your money back in savings- a return on investment of between 14 – 33%. And this is only in the first few years. The system will last at least three times longer than this “payback period,” a 20 to 30 year period of proverbial (non-taxable) cream off the top.

But here’s the clincher… the money that is initially invested in solar will be spent on water heating over those 8 years, with OR without your new chic SWH! The savings are at least equivalent to your status quo heating bills. So essentially, you’re buying the system whether you choose to or not. The question is how many more times will you buy it over your lifetime. Then throw in added equity to your home ($500 in energy savings increases equity value by $10,000), support for your local economy and drastic worldwide environmental improvements through carbon reductions and you have an Appalachian recipe for success my friends.

And, with all the money you’re MAKING, you can have more opportunity for some “extra-curricular” activities, some of which can expand the solar revolution itself.

Seems you can’t turn on the tv without stumbling across a “green” special. This week, NBC are launching their “GREEN is universal” campaign.

We want to help spread the word too, so we are offering groups in the Asheville area our new presentation on the benefits of solar thermal systems. Here are some slide from a recent talk that Erik, our engineer, gave to the Asheville Board of Realtors’ Eco-realtors Association. As you can see from the slide below, we start off with the big picture stuff before getting into details of solar systems.

Another interesting factoid from the presentation: “climate change” gets more google hits than “viagra”, “Iraq war” and “Paris Hilton” combined, although why you would want to combine viagra, the war and Ms. Hilton, I can only imagine.

Yes, it’s official. Our friends at the National Renewable Energy Lab , or NREL, in Golden, Colorado, have produced a timely reminder that using solar thermal panels to produce hot water is a much more effective (and cheaper) way of reducing our nation’s energy use and generally helping to save the planet, than installing solar-electric pv panels.

Their new report* starts off by looking at how many roofs are suitable for solar hot water panels - half of all homes and two-thirds of commercial buildings. But only 22% of homes are suitable for solar-electric pv systems because they need 400 square feet or more of roof space, compared with 60-90 square feet for solar hot water panels. To cut a long story short, putting solar systems on these roofs to make hot water would reduce CO2 emissions by 50-75 million tonnes per year, which would apparently have the same impact as eliminating Oregon (sorry, Oregon). And consumers would save about $8 billion a year on utility bills (sorry, utility companies).

*Technical Potential of Solar Water Heating to Reduce Fossil Fuel Use and Greenhouse Gas Emissions in the United States
NREL report1

When Erik, our VP of engineering, invited us to his “cabin” for a Sunday cookout, we all thought of something like this. Colleagues and families alike were delighted (relieved) to find that the hideaway that Erik and his wife, Karen, built themselves at the top of a mountain in Spring Creek, Madison County, was actually very spiffy.

Here are CJ Marwede, Dave Clark and his wife Lynne, and David Wallace’s stepson, Josh, basking on the deck.

Wes Dodge showed us all up with his demonstration of the genteel way to cradle a cold one.

Our solar storage tank is not just an everyday water tank. The design has been perfected over many years by its German designers and it is now one of the most popular solar storage tanks in Europe. We thought folks would like a look at the inside so we opened one up, and our cutaway tank is now a big hit at exhibitions.

The glycol (a fluid just like the antifreeze for your car) from the solar panels on the roof flows through the coil that looks like a big garden hose to heat the water in the tank (bottom coil). Pipe cold water through the top coil and that water will heat up, for use in your home heating system. Inside the tank, where it is immersed directly in the water you will later draw from your faucet, is the smart place to put that heating coil. Some popular US-designed tanks are just ordinary hot water tanks with a copper hot water coil wrapped around the outside. The heat from those panels you have invested in doesn’t transfer to the water so easily and those hot coils lose more of their heat to their surroundings. Not only do those US-designed tanks cool off quicker, they will not even store as much heat for your daily uses in the first place. Typically they have a top temperature of only 185F. Today, the tank on our own system held 202F water. When water at this temperature is mixed down to a nice, hot-but-safe, temperature for your home, it will provide you with 30 to 40 gallons more hot water than our colder competitors.

To the side of the cutaway is the “brain” of our system - a controller that displays the temperature in the tank and solar panels and a small pump that circulates the glycol from the panels, through the coils in the tank, and back to the panels. That little pump will only turn on when the tank has cooled, and wants heat, and the panels are hot and want to cool down!

So that’s it. Come take a look for yourself at one of our future events.

Occasionally the Asheville Home Builders Association holds a vendors’ night where companies that supply materials and services to homebuilders can show off their offerings. McNutt Service Group, our exclusive dealership for residential solar thermal kits in the Asheville region was at the most recent event, and we went along to give them our support.

Buddy Seagraves, Debra Sawyer and Rick Baylis from McNutt and Travis Bryenton and David and Matt Clark from Appalachian Energy educated local builders about how our solar thermal systems work and how they could benefit from installing them. Once again the ladies from AHBA, Caroline and Adrianne, did a wonderful job putting on the event and making sure we all had plenty to eat.

Welcome to our blog, where we will be talking about what’s new at Appalachian Energy, what our dealers and other partners are up to, and generally keeping track of our nation’s transformation to a clean energy future.

McNutt Service Group, our dealers in our home region around Asheville, had a perfect location for their first residential installation. This beautiful 1929 home on Brevard Rd has recently been renovated from top to bottom. The McNutt installation team added the finishing touch – a two panel Appalachian Energy solar hot water system. Our standard residential kit, with its single 80 gallon, solar hot water storage tank, will be just right for this 1600 square foot West Asheville home.