Team Germany tops Solar Decathlon competition; UW-M lags

Visitors stand in line to learn about Team Germany's solar-powered house, which won the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., Sunday, Oct. 18, 2009. (Photo by Stefano Paltera/U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon)

From a news release issued by the U.S. Department of Energy:

WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Department of Energy Deputy Secretary Daniel Poneman today announced the winners of the 2009 Department of Energy Solar Competition on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Team Germany, the student team from Darmstadt, Germany, won top honors by designing, building, and operating the most attractive and efficient solar-powered home. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign took second place followed by Team California in third place.

The active competition lasted for a week, with the prototype home designs open to the public through Sunday. Team Germany’s winning “Cube House” design produced a surplus of power even during three days of rain. This is the team’s second-straight Solar Decathlon victory, after winning the previous competition in 2007. . . .

Over the past two weeks, the 2009 Solar Decathlon challenged 20 university-led teams from the United States and as far away as Spain, Germany, and Canada to compete in 10 contests, ranging from subjective elements such as architecture, market viability, communications, lighting design, and engineering, to technical measurements of how well the homes provided energy for space heating and cooling, hot water, home entertainment, appliances, and net metering.

New to this year’s competition, the Net Metering Contest was worth 150 points towards the final results and was the most heavily weighted contest. It challenged teams to generate surplus energy, above and beyond the power needed to run a house, which they fed into a power grid.

Team Germany earned 908.29 points out of a possible 1,000 to win the competition, followed by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with 897.30 points, and Team California with 863.08 points.

The UW-Milwaukee team brought up the rear with 524.074 points, largely due to delays in getting the home to Washington. The University of Minnesota Team finished fifth with 838.544 point.

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We Energies public hearing rescheduled

A news release from the Public Service Commission:

MADISON – The Public Service Commission of Wisconsin (PSC) has rescheduled a 2nd public hearing for Wednesday, October 21 in Milwaukee on We Energies’ (Wisconsin Electric Power Company (WEPCO) and Wisconsin Gas, LLC) request to adjust electric, steam and natural gas rates.

Administrative Law Judge Michael Newmark will be present to receive comments from the public at the hearing site in Serb Hall, Wisconsin South Hall, 5101 West Oklahoma Avenue in Milwaukee beginning at 3 p.m. and 6 p.m.

When a utility requests a change in rates, the PSC conducts a thorough audit of the utility’s expenses and revenues. The agency will look at the amount We Energies needs to provide a reliable source of energy to customers, which includes costs of fuel, maintenance, new construction and environmental protection.

Public comments on We Energies’ application will be included in the record the Commission will review to make a decision. The PSC has the authority to approve, deny or modify the application.

Citizens are encouraged to attend. The hearing location is accessible to people in wheelchairs. Anyone requiring accommodations to participate should contact the PSC at 608-266-5481.

Documents associated with We Energies’ application can be viewed on the PSC’s Electronic Regulatory Filing System at http://psc.wi.gov. Type case numbers 5-UR-104in the boxes provided on the PSC homepage, or click on the Electronic Regulatory Filing System button.

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Michigan school to test Lake Michigan's wind

From an article by Dave Alexander in the Meskegon Chronicle:

Grand Valley State University’s wind turbine testing project for Muskegon Lake is shifting in a new direction.

Instead of a wind turbine at the east end of Muskegon Lake, GVSU’s Michigan Alternative and Renewable Energy Center now is planning to move a wind test platform to Lake Michigan, where data can be collected on the pros and cons of turbines on a major lake.

The university has received $1.4 million in an “earmark” from U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Holland, to advance wind turbine generation on the Great Lakes.

The idea of testing a turbine on Muskegon Lake is cost prohibitive with the federal dollars available, according to Arn Boezaart, interim director of the Muskegon-based MAREC. Efforts to partner with L-3 Communications in Muskegon have not been successful.

Discussions with officials from the U.S. Department of Energy and those interested in advancing a Great Lakes wind industry in West Michigan led to the idea of a floating, data-collection platform in Lake Michigan.

The platform would hold a anemometer that gauges wind speed. . . .

A data-collection platform established from 6-10 miles off the Muskegon shoreline would be left on the lake for two or three years. It would provide year-round wind data.

The floating platform also could test anchoring systems and show how Lake Michigan ice movements in the winter would affect an eventual lake-based turbine installation, Boezaart said.

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North America - 40,000 new wind turbines by 2015

North America, particularly U.S. desperately needs much stronger renewable energy sector, and the most promising look to be solar energy and wind energy. The latter one could looks to be soon experiencing new boom with the deployment of 40,000 new wind turbines across North America, and in the period of only 6 years, by the year 2015. Well, this is at least what report from Pike Research has to

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Closed duck farm may reopen as renewable energy site in Racine

From an article by Rick Barrett in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

A group of local businessmen have proposed using a waste treatment facility at the former Maple Leaf Farms in Yorkville to process food waste into electricity.

Maple Leaf was one of the nation's largest duck farms. It closed in 2008, resulting in the shutdown of its manure-to-energy methane digester.

DF-1 Associates is a group of Racine-area businessmen involved in restaurant grease recycling. They're hoping to reopen the methane digester and fuel it with restaurant garbage and waste from food-processing plants. The company would make money by hauling away the waste from restaurants and food processors and selling electricity generated from the digester.

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Rumors fly about offline wind turbines

From an article by Colleen Kottke in the Fond du Lac Reporter:

BROWNSVILLE — As the blades of the 86 turbines on the Forward Wind Energy Center remain still, rumors have been circulating faster than the wind as to why the wind farm has been offline since Sept. 29.

Invenergy LLC officials attributed the shutdown to scheduled maintenance of the wind farm's substation. However, the latest buzz that a major utility pulled out of its power purchase contract and has left Invenergy without a new customer to fill the void simply isn't true, said Laura Miner, asset manager for Invenergy.

"There was a delay in getting parts for the transformer at the plant, and now we have completed testing of the equipment and will begin bringing the unit back online," Miner said. "This is a very time-consuming process as we have to manually prepare the unit. We expect the plant to be back online sometime early next week."

Calls to the Forward Wind Center's four major power purchasers confirmed that all contracts negotiated with the Chicago-based firm remain in place. Invenergy currently has contracts with Madison Gas & Electric, 40 megawatts; Wisconsin Public Power Inc., 40 megawatts; Wisconsin Public Service, 70 megawatts; and Alliant Energy, 50 megawatts.

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UW-M team slipping; U. of Minn still in solar decathlon competition

From an article by Jim Dawson and Devin Powell on MinnPost.com:

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Team members from the University of Minnesota were tense as they prepared their 565 square foot solar home for a visit by jurors from the engineering and lighting judging panels. Experts in their respective fields, the jurors' visit would determine the team's score for the aesthetics and functionality aspects of their design that cannot be properly evaluated by measurements alone.

The judges would also be taking comfort zone and appliance measurements, and the students were worried about every operational detail inside their $501,000 house.

The Minnesota team was in 7th place out of the 20 teams that built entirely solar-powered homes on the National Mall in downtown Washington as part of the Department of Energy's 2009 Solar Decathlon competition. . . .

At the other end of the Mall, the team from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee was struggling. The team was in last place, and were struggling to get the house's sliding doors to move smoothly on their tracks. Their house, valued at $485,000, had tabletops made out of pressed paper and cashew shells and the ability to warm up just from the heat of the people inside.

But its last-place standing reflected a 3-inch problem in the design.

"The west end of the house was 3 inches too tall to go through Indiana [on the transport trailer]," said Eric Davis, the project's chief engineer. "So we had to go down through Illinois, then cross Kentucky."

There was another height regulation problem when they got to the edge of Washington, and it took another 20 hours to finally get their structure to the National Mall. While the other teams were fine tuning their home's systems, the Wisconsin team was still wearing hard hats and putting their house together.

"We missed the metering contest, so our score is down," Davis said.

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