Creative Energies Blog

AJ spent a windy day last week working on a solar power system at the Hog Creek Canal, east of Tetonia in the Teton Valley. Friends of the Teton River built a fishscreen at the entrance to the irrigation canal to keep fish in the main creek.  Hog Creek and the rest of the South Leigh Creek drainage is one of only a few watersheds in the valley that still support a healthy Cutthroat Trout population, but when the irrigation canals run, the fish get swept out of the creek and end up in farmers’ fields.

The screens are pretty cool–they’re built similar to a conveyor-belt so that as they revolve, the debris that would otherwise clog up the screen gets cleaned off.  As part of our membership in 1% For the Tetons and 1 % for the Planet, Creative Energies is donating our labor to build a system that provides solar power to run the motors for the screens.  They’re pretty simple off-grid systems; each screen gets one photovoltaic module and two batteries.

AJ spent the day mounting the PV modules on their poles and wiring them into the battery box, and preparing the motors to be mounted and connected to the drive chain for the screens, which Jake then finished a few days later.    

Each of the past two years, the Driggs-based non-profit, Friends of the Teton River, has installed fish screens. Last year, Creative Energies provided power to one on Badger Creek.  This year’s project, located on Hog Canal, was similar.  What is the purpose?  Many of the creeks and rivers in Teton Valley are critical habitat for native fish species, particularly Cutthroat Trout.  Due to our arid climate and agricultural economy, farmers divert water along ditches and canals for irrigation.  When the canals run high in the Spring, many fish swim into the irrigation ditches.  As the water level drops and the ditches run dry, the fish are stranded and die. Friends of the Teton River has installed the screens so that the water continues to flow into the canal but the fish cannot.  The solar system powers a small motor to rotate the screen periodically, and keep it from getting clogged with debris.  As a result, more fish survive in the main channel.

Creative Energies donated a portion of the project as part of our annual contribution to 1 % for the Tetons.

We have solar panels on our barn. When the sun is out the panels make electricity - kilowatt-hours (kWh). Our home either uses the kWhs or puts them into the electricity grid, banking them for later. Over the course of a year the sun meets about 70% of our electricity needs. The 25-year warranty on the panels plus a continuing effort at energy conservation (more efficient appliances, lighting, and computers/electronics, etc.) means our energy usage could still decrease over the next 30+ years!

When my wife and I moved into our current home we averaged about 1,100 kWhs/month for the first year, right in line with the Idaho residential average of 1,078 kWhs/month. (Check here for a wealth of energy statistics:  http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/state/index.cfm. We then focused on conservation measures. We changed light bulbs, replaced an ageing refrigerator, spray-foam insulated the crawl space, plugged holes, and went down the list of normal energy efficiency improvements. We were also more conscious about turning off lights, using our wood stove and keeping our baseboard electric heat turned off. All of the little measures led to a 40% energy use reduction! We used 660 kWhs/month that year. (Which is below the Wyoming average of 871 kWhs/month, and less than half of the Jackson average of 1,500 kWhs/month!)

Our next step was to install a 2kW solar electric system. It makes just less than 300 kWhs/month, which leaves our current energy purchase at around 400 kWhs/month. (Note: we actually have two houses on the property, both on the same meter - I figure the smaller rental home uses around 250 of those kWhs a month at least.)

So in the end, we took 60% off our energy use from the time we moved into the home. First we did normal improvements, and then we installed a solar electric system. If we keep working at it, we should be able to reduce even more. The rental home needs some energy efficient improvements – which is our next target.

We have fixed most of our electricity costs for the long term, become less dependent on others, and reduced our impact on the world (0.8 lbs of CO2 per local kWh = 100 tons of CO2 saved!).   We have also saved money. Using 8,400 kWhs less per year for the next 30 years is $18,000 at current electricity prices! That’s $600 a year! If the cost of electricity goes up in the future, we save even more.

Green = Green.