Look all four feet are off the ground!

In 2008 we renovated this 1924 farm house including adding some additional space. We insulated and sealed the building, improved some of the windows and added solar tubes for daylight. In 2009 we installed a geothermal heat pump for the building’s heating and cooling and a grid connected wind turbine. At that point we tracked the energy use for a year and then designed and installed a grid-tied photovoltaic system designed to meet the remaining electric needs of the building.

Now, a year after the installation of the solar PV system, we are finding that our annual energy balance is arriving exactly at zero. Excess electric production during the months from April through October offset our net use from November through March.

Click on each slide for a larger image; some of the text is pretty small.

ABOVE: Less than a mile west of the stoplight in Driggs there is an array of solar panels that are online to help keep the power bills down for the sewer system.  CITIZEN PHOTO / HOPE

BELOW: In Victor, an enormous solar array was installed on the south-facing roof of the city building.CREATIVE ENERGIES PHOTO / ANDY TYSON

Historically, the light bill is pretty hefty during the winter months for Teton Valley residents, but two area towns are leading the way with alternatives by utilizing federal dollars to install solar panels.

Putting to work a combination of nearly $400K captured through the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG) Program, funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the cities of Driggs and Victor are now running on sunshine, at least partially.

In separate EECB grants, Driggs and Victor were awarded $231,205 and $164,000 respectively to fully fund a pair of projects that didn’t take them off the grid, but allowed that grid to bank whatever power was in excess after running their own operations. Credits earned through a net metering system actually spin their meters backwards when they exceed the power necessary to function.

In Victor, an enormous solar panel was installed on the south-facing roof of the city building, and Driggs’ Waste Water Treatment Facility an impressive array of solar panels stand at attention north of the lagoons that utilize the power generated by the sun. With a capacity of 38.88 KW, the Driggs project is the largest municipal solar panel array in the state. Victor is running a close second with 31.36 KW capacity.

“Unless something drastic happens, we shouldn’t have an electric bill for the next 40 years at least,” said Victor City Clerk Craig Sherman.

Both the Driggs and Victor solar panel projects went through a specific bidding process, and both were awarded to Creative Energies, a company with offices in Victor and Lander, Wyo. that completed the pair of projects earlier this month.

Andy Tyson with the Victor office of Creative Energies is a member of the solar task force for the Idaho Strategic Energy Alliance, and he confirmed that the latter Teton Valley projects are the most significant solar arrays when it comes to municipalities.

“We are a local company that put in the low bid,” Tyson said. “It was awarded and then we designed and installed the two projects. These are very modern grid-tied systems that actually feed the grid if the panels make more electricity than the individual users need. If more energy is made than consumed, credits are issued by Fall River.”

Neither the Driggs nor the Victor systems have storage capacity. There are no batteries in the basement being charged by the solar panels. Excess power is simply delivered into the grid, resulting in the cleanest energy source imaginable. During cloudy days, the Driggs sewage lagoons and the Victor City Building pull power from the grid instead of adding it, but the freestanding Driggs panels and the roof-mounted Victor panels are rarely blocked by snowfall, as they are good conductors of heat. Mounted at a 45 degree angle, the Driggs panels are likely to clear of snow first. Even though the Victor panels are installed at a lesser angle, they are mounted on a metal roof that clears quickly.

“These towns went to the state and the state awarded federal dollars to these projects,” Tyson pointed out. “The result is taxpayer benefit for years. The systems are warrantied for 25 years. They’ll probably last 50.”

It was a priority of the EECB grants to deploy the cheapest, cleanest and most reliable energy technologies across the country in an effort to reduce fossil fuel emissions, improve energy efficiency in the transportation, building, and other appropriate sectors and create jobs.

for a link to the article:

http://valleycitizen.com/stories_news_detail.php?pkStories=312

The project was highlighted at this event:

Town of Jackson…

224.19 Kilowatts ☼ 988 Panels

…and growing!

Please join us to celebrate

Wyoming’s Largest Solar Installation

October 13^th, 2010 @ 1 PM

 Town of Jackson Solar Farm

Please meet at the Teton County Fairgrounds.

Ride a Hybrid START bus to the farm.

The bus will depart from the Fairgrounds at

1 pm and return at 3 pm.

Neither Wyoming nor Idaho currently have licensing programs specifically for solar technologies. We, at Creative Energies, believe that in the absence of such programs, NABCEP certification offers our customers the best guarantee that their system design and installation is of the highest quality.

The North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners (NABCEP) is a volunteer board of renewable energy stakeholder representatives that includes representatives of the solar industry, NABCEP certificants, renewable energy organizations, state policy makers, educational institutions, and the trades. Each member of the board was chosen because of his or her experience and involvement in the solar energy industry. NABCEP’s mission–to support, and work with, the renewable energy and energy efficiency industries, professionals, and stakeholders–is intended to develop and implement quality credentialing and certification programs for practitioners.

NABCEP’s goal is to develop voluntary national certification programs that will:

• Promote renewable energy;
• Provide value to practitioners;
• Promote worker safety and skill; and
• Promote consumer confidence

WYOMING (wpr) - There’s a groundswell of interest in small-scale renewable energy in Wyoming. Hundreds of homeowners are buying their own wind turbines and solar panels. But their reasons for investing in alternative energy point to a particular brand of environmentalism, one that’s an outgrowth of rural life and rural values. Wyoming Public Radio’s Molly Messick has this story. © Copyright 2010, wpr

Click here to listen.

For Immediate Release

Date: 2.18.2010

Contact: Scott Kane, Creative Energies

Creative Energies hired for Largest Solar Project in Wyoming

Town of Jackson contracts with Creative Energies for 810 panels

Lander-based Creative Energies has been contracted to design and install several of the biggest solar power systems in the state and region. The Town of Jackson, WY has hired Creative Energies, to install an additional 810 solar panels on Town facilities, creating the largest solar installation in the state.  When the project is completed this summer, the town of Jackson will have four solar projects with a total capacity of 225kW. The largest of these projects will be at the town’s wastewater treatment facility, where a total of 842 panels will produce roughly 200kW. Of the three other systems, two are already in place — on the stair tower of the parking garage and at the Deloney street public restroom – and the third system will assist a town water project in Karns meadow.

  27kW solar array installed at the Jackson Waste Water Treatment plant in 2008 by Creative Energies. The 2010 installation will be six times as large!

“Our goal with these projects” said Mayor Mark Barron “is to continue to move the ball forward with our commitment to becoming energy sustainable. We have good baseline data about usage and have made significant strides in setting out energy efficiency retrofit strategies. Renewable energy is also a critical piece of our overall sustainability goals, and we are thrilled to partner with Creative Energies and leverage stimulus dollars to save energy, create jobs, and work towards national goals of energy security.”

In addition to the Town of Jackson project, Creative Energies have also been selected to design and build several other major projects. The company won a highly competitive bidding process to secure and a a contract with the US National Park Service to design and build a 76 kilowatt  solar power system for at Mesa Verde National Park in Southwest Colorado. They are also currently under construction on a 50 kilowatt solar installation for the Wyoming Department of Tourism and Travel and WDOT’s  North East Wyoming Welcome Center near Sundance, Wyoming.

The Town of Jackson solar farm will be the largest solar array in  Wyoming and several of the surrounding states, and the Town of Jackson will be the largest grid tied solar customer in the region. “Two hundred and twenty five kilowatts of solar is a very large system for this area” says Creative Energies owner Andy Tyson. “The Town is really making a sound investment in this technology. By targeting stimulus funding on a technology that will yield steady energy generation with minimal operating cost for decades to come, the Town has made a shrewd long-term investment.” The solar panels will create as much electricity as is used by 33 Wyoming homes.

Creative Energies has been designing and installing renewable energy systems in the Rocky Mountain west for nine years. They have completed solar energy systems, wind power systems and geothermal heating and cooling systems for residences, ranches, businesses, schools and state and federal agencies.

Creative Energies

P.O. Box 1777, Lander,  WY 82520
Lander, WY office  307.332.3410
Victor, ID office  208.354.3001
Fax  888.456.6625
scott@creativeenergies.biz    

www.creativeenergies.biz

PO Box 1777 · Lander, WY 82520 · 307.332.3410 · www.CreativeEnergies.biz

Each year, somewhere around the beginning of March, things at Creative Energies get busy. Well, if Creative Energies is busy that means Toby Schmidt, Co-Owner and project manager, is going full speed. This is what he did last week:

Monday:
6am start. Fort Washakie Entrepreneurs Center PV installation. Load 40 solar panels and the solar mounting rack in the CE work truck. Toby, Dan Kilcoyne (Electrician) and Curtis Tronlone (solar and geothermal installer) arrive on site and spend the day building three solar mounting structures and installing 40 Evergreen ES-A 205 modules on a flat roof of a great looking new commercial building. Beautiful day. Done by 5pm. The solar array looks great. Dan will go back to complete the electrical work.

Tuesday:
6 am start. 10 kilowatt residential PV solar installation near Cody. Load up 45 Sunpower solar modules and rack material on a truck and trailer. Drive three hours, again with Dan and Curtis. Today’s solar install is on a 8/12 pitch roof. Fall protection equipment slows the pace of work but that’s what it takes to put solar on a roof with an appropriately steep pitch. The work gets harder when the snow started to fall. An inch or two of snow complicates work on a steep roof. According to Dan, the last half hour of work took three hours. Once again, a great looking solar array installed in one go, though this time the finish was in the dark. Again, Dan will go back to do the remaining electrical work.

Wednesday:
Toby and Curtis switch gears from solar to geothermal. They travel to Sundance, WY to continue work on an ongoing geothermal project. We are installing both solar and a geothermal loop field at the Northeast Wyoming Welcome Center, now under construction. After five hours driving to get there they stage our Bobcat skid steer, our drilling rig and our grout pump at the geothermal field site. Spring mud conditions prevented them from getting the vehicles to where they wanted but they made it work somehow. “Grouting” means injecting a precise mixture of silica sand, bentonite grout and water down into the full depth of each of our sixteen 200 foot deep geothermal bore holes. It is not a clean or quiet process. Done well, though, it allows the geoxchange field to capture or release heat into the ground efficiently.

Thursday:
More grouting. All day. Lots of mud and sand. Drive five hours back to Lander. Arrive 2 am.

Friday:
6 am start. Project planning meeting in Mesa Verde, CO. Creative Energies has been selected to design and install a 76 kW solar installation at Mesa Verde National Park, CO. Toby’s list of skills is long and full of surprises. New to the list is flight. Toby and Phil Schneider (system engineer) meet at the Lander airport at first light. At 8:30 they are 500 miles south. A productive working session with National Park Service staff helps to map out a complex installation. Phil and Toby touch down in Lander just before dark.