ECO Energy News

Helping Communities Become Green

Posts Tagged ‘development’

Sustainability summit in Salida, Colorado

October 14th, 2009

The Mountain Mail front page included an article today announcing The Chaffee County Renewable Energy Planning Initiative summit October 15 in Salida, Colorado. Kathryn Wadsworth of Incite Consulting, LLC says this summit is the public involvement component.

Businesses, non-profits, government, and academia may attend a presentation from 9:00 to 10:30 a.m. by Don Marostica, Colorado Department of Economic Development and International Trade director. Marostica will talk about renewable energy economic development for Chaffee County, Colorado.

Other meetings scheduled for the day include a sustainability round table from 1:00 to 4:30 and the Renewable Energy Economic Summit from 6:00 to 8:30 p.m.

The round table will include organizations with reservations. They currently include: the towns of Poncha Springs, Buena Vista, and Salida, representative from Chaffee County, Southwest Conservation Corps, Colorado Mountain College, Chaffee Citizens for Sustainability, Mt. Princeton Geothermal, Peak Solar Designs, Saguache County and Custer County Conservation District.

According the The Mountain Mail article the Renewable Energy Economic Summit (at 6:00) is open to the public and will “feature discussion about the energy economy, geothermal resources and energy supplier programs and incentives.”

McGlynn Middle School Northwind 100 turbine web interface

October 9th, 2009

Northern Power Systems offers administrative software to monitor their Northwind 100 Wind Turbine. Here is a website that shows the McGlynn Middle School’s turbine in Medford, MA.

A quote from the Northern Power Systems website says it best:

PublicView: Your Community’s Window Into Your Northwind 100 Turbine

The turbine is up and spinning, the ribbon cutting is over, and most of the news camera crews have gone home. But neighbors, residents, and customers are still calling, inquiring, and visiting the newest addition to their town. PublicView is a web-based tool that can provide answers to the questions people may have, such as:

How much power is the Northwind 100 producing?
How windy is it today?
How much energy has the Northwind 100 made to date?

Your turbine will be the center of attention for at least the first few years of operation. Giving your neighbors a window into its operation and impact can encourage long-term support and a sense of community involvement in your wind project.

Good for ‘em!

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Posted in Case Studies, Commercial Wind Power, Energy, Wind

Tags: application costs of installation development small wind turbines

NABCEP reports record increase in test takers

October 8th, 2009

The North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners (NABCEP) reported in September 2009 an all time record of certification exams from the Spring 2009. This is an indicator that going green is continuing to be grow in popularity.

From the NABCEP website:

The September 2009 NABCEP Photovoltaic and Solar Thermal Installer Certification exams saw a record number of applicants: 455 people in 19 sites across the U.S. sat for the exams. The Spring 2009 exams, offered at 14 sites, was administered to 199 test-takers. That’s a 129% increase from the Spring to the Fall exams.

Here’s a rundown of the top states:

California-71
Texas–56
Colorado–47
New York–44
North Carolina–36
Minnesota–29
Illinois-29
New Jersey–28
Massachusetts–25
Ohio-23

The NABCEP provides an application on their website that finds certified installers in given areas. EcoDepotUSA’s Curtis Scheib is the only one listed as certified within Salida, Colorado.

According to the Colorado Solar Energy Industries Association “Find a Solar Installer Near You” application, among solar installers within the I-70 corridor there are only seven installers certified to install both solar hot water systems and solar electric systems. Eco Depot USA is one of them.

1 comment »

Posted in Energy, Reviews, Solar

Tags: application development eco friendly

Bolton Valley wind turbine getting more press

October 3rd, 2009

The Bolton Valley ski area wind turbine continues to get press and media coverage. The ski area is installing a Northwind 100 Wind Turbine. The Northwind Power Systems company is based in Barre, Vermont. Here’s an article that says construction starts on Monday and then lists a short schedule of the construction process.

Bolton Valley will be the fourth ski area in the nation to generate it’s own power from wind resources. Here in Chaffee County Colorado we’re hoping that Monarch Mountain is paying attention.

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Posted in Commercial Wind Power, Energy, How Wind Turbines Work, Planning, Wind

Tags: application development eco friendly ski areas turbines

Chaffee County energy summit set for October 15

October 2nd, 2009

Incite Consulting, will be the project manager for the Chaffee County Renewable Energy Plan. According to The Mountain Mail, “An economic development summit focused on renewable energy is planned for 5-8 p.m. Oct. 15 at the Salida Steam Plant Theater and Event Center.”

Representatives from Buena Vista, Poncha Springs, Salida, and Chaffee County make up a steering committee for the Chaffee County Renewable Energy Plan development.

The purpose of the plan is “to prepare to participate in and take advantage of [Colorado Gov. Ritter's] New Energy Economy and encourage and implement conservation efforts.”

Residents, businesses, and organizations are encouraged to attend meetings and make comments on a the project’s website.

Plugins We Tried Today

August 26th, 2009

We went through a bunch of plugins today trying to make one work well with this current theme. We finally settled on Add to Any. You can see it at the bottom of each post. We customized the image to make it greener. It’s simple, easy to install, and contains most of the social sites anyone could want. Others we tried today and rejected were:

Bookmark Me
SocBookMark
TimesURL.atSocialblePlugin

They were generally a pain to install and didn’t list most of the social sites. A couple of them didn’t show up on our top page in posts, but did show up in the individual view of posts.

Another plugin we tried to day was Woopra. The jury is still out on this one. It’s supposed to provide site statistics. We don’t like the idea that we need to register on the Woopra site. We’re thinking there are other plugins that could work without that need.

We installed DandyID yesterday to help us keep track of all the social sites we will become members of. It consolodates your profile so you can use it over again. The plugin lists all the social sites we’re registered on in our sidebar. Then if you click a social site icon it takes you to our profile on that particular social site.

Another plugin we activated today is Askimet to help us avoid spam in our comments. This one is pretty standard stuff. I guess it’s not automatically installed because it’s necessary to insert an API key that proves you’re who you say you are.

Next we have to activate the post via email settings.