Last week, I was asked to write a testimonial for SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Executives) which I happily did.  Writing that piece, I got to thinking about why I started this school in the middle of a recession.

So here’s the back-story on the Solar Institute of Nevada.

On March 3l” of 2009 I was laid·off from my Union electricians job on the Cosmo Hotel site in Las Vegas. Resigning the out of work book at the Union Hall I became #923 on book two. Well it was easy to see that - given the economic situation at the time,  regular work was not an option. I thought some specialty training would improve my chances; so. I tried to sign up for solar training  through the Union on three occasions , but the classes were always full.

When I went to the Internet for training, I was surprised that there was no other training in Nevada. Myself and a buddy end up going to San Jose for training. While there, I thought if someone would come to San Jose for a one week workshop, a one week workshop in Las Vegas sounded a lot more likely. After returning to ‘Sin City’, my buddy and l started researching what it would take to start teaching a solar course in Las Vegas.

Never having owned a business before, we started at the Small Business Administration’s office. The

SBA

 works with SCORE, who in turn, work with business owners. After talking to a SCORE counselor, and answering some tough questions, the idea still seemed feasible.

SCORE provided us with some low cost software to help us write a business plan. After several more advice-sessions and several more re·writes of the Biz-pIan, we now had a blueprint on how to proceed. Then came the first major set back, my partner who had been working all this time got laid-off and decided he wanted to go to Texas to find work and his half of the seed money went with him.

Then depression  set  in…  no job , no partner, no plan. What brought me out of my funk was the day I realized my ‘Underpants-Zone’ was getting too big. Let me explain for all the non-single people out there, when you have not had a job or even a prospect of one for an extended time, you stop getting dressed in the morning. After all, it is more comfortable to watch the Today Show, The View, and Oprah in your boxers.

A couple of weeks later you need something out of your car in the driveway, and you think…’why put on pants when you’re only going to be outside for I5 seconds. BOOM!; your underpants-zone has just expanded. Next it’s the mailbox on the curb, or putting the trash cans out. Then comes the day you find yourself in the Taco Bell drive thru in a ZZ—Top tee-shirt and your Fruit of the Looms.

Anyway, I understood I needed something to focus on to give me a reason to get dressed in the morning. So I pulled out the business plan and began looking for a way to do it on my own. Several days of ‘soul searching’ later, I decided I DID have the passion and fire in the belly to risk it all to make my dream a reality. OK, now I have to rewrite the business plan again. DONE! Now to get a business license, so I go to the county clerk’s office.  ‘Whoa…’ says the clerk…  to teach this kind of course you have to become a licensed VO·TECH School before you get your business license. So I contact the Commission on Postsecondary Education for the State of Nevada about a license. “Sure, no problem, just fill out this application then go pay $60 to get finger printed, then provide us with a financial review done by a CPA (another $500 to$I000.) Now we need your educational and work experience, copies of your curriculum, and all the forms  you plan on using to meet NRS-Chapter 394.  The Commission on Postsecondary Education only meets four times a year and you have to submit all this information 60 days in advance or wait another three months; now just pay the $1500 fee; and in five short months, you can come before the Commission and be grilled as to why they should approve your request for a license. In the meantime you may not advertise market or in any way line up customers before you are licensed.

Well, this trick-pony jumped through all those hoops and was licensed, then I leased classroom space, paid for my county license, paid state sales tax in advance, Bought liability insurance, and workmen’s comp insurance, posted a $10,000 bond, registered with the State as a LLC, bought classroom and office furniture equipment and supplies including a $6000 photovoltaic system for the lab.

Six weeks before my license hearing, I contacted a web-designer who designed this awesome website and became my good friend and mentor, (Thanks Tom). So, here we are just over a year the doors are open I have students in my classes… AND… I am having the best time of my life. Will it be a financial success who’s to say, but am I successful — ABSOLUTELY!

Now that solar power is becoming more available to the public, the main stumbling block is the high initial cost of a system and the length of payback in years. The increasing cost of grid power is one way of increasing ROI (return on investment) by decreasing the payback term. The other way would be to reduce the initial system costs. There are two main ways to do this

1) increase efficiencies in the systems

2) decrease the costs of materials in the components.

Over the last couple of decades the greatest strides have been made in component efficiencies. To that end transformer efficiency is now 97% to 98% and leaves no further room for improvement. Likewise at present voltages, inverters are 98% efficient and any future savings will come from decreased costs in manufacturing and reliability (more on this later) or by increasing string voltages. Higher string voltages for the same module areas are now possible because of improved power output of thin film modules. Higher output voltage has less transmission loss, thus increased efficiency. Most inverters have shut off voltages of 1000 volts. Increasing it to 1200 volts would mean an automatic 20% increase.

One company using design to cut installation costs is Prosolar. Their inverter cabinets enclose both the DC and AC disconnects cutting down on labor hours, conduit, and connecters. Companies like Emcore and Amonix are using lenses to concentrate photons on small high efficiency cells to increase output per square foot. This technology is currently used in large scale facilities; but, it is only a matter of time till it finds its way to the residential market. BioSolar started with the mission to make solar manufacturing a greener process. They are developing a line of bio-based resins and films to be used as backsheets on solar modules and substrates to back thin film cells. This company’s products not only cost less than the petroleum based components they replace, they are also more thermally conductive so they lower module temperatures and increase power output.

Most solar components have twenty year warranties, but figured into those warranties is failure and replacement costs of certain parts. The best example of this is the cooling fans in some inverters. The inverters have a twenty year warranty but the fans fail in five to seven years. You don’t pay to have the fans replaced, but you lose the ROI while your system is down waiting to have a fan replaced. Also early solar cells degraded over time and became less efficient, thankfully this problem has been addressed and the cells are now much more reliable. Other companies are working to make the mounting of arrays easier and faster to reduce labor costs.

It’s nearing the end of July, the kids are bored, the AC is on, and you don’t want to heat up the kitchen to cook a meal. – Well, get on the web on and research solar-cooking on sites like http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/The_Solar_Cooking_Archive_Wiki – Here, you’ll find plans for a multitude of different types of solar ovens, and reflective cookers. Building several different ones out of cardboard, aluminium foil, black tempera paint, and oven roasting bags… will keep the kids busy for a day or two.

 
Now here’s the best part; YOU help them pick recipies to try in their ovens and they cook dinner outdoors for a week t to see whose cooker works best on different foods. Cheap oven-thermometers will help them chart temperatures over the cooking cycle and they can also record ‘time and results’ of family taste-tests. There are other web sites that can help figure out how much carbon is being saved to help fight global warming. Also, on the next camping trip or picnic they will have something to show and amaze their friends.

 
Horace de Saussure is considered the father of solar cooking, in 1767 green houses were common in Europe for raising tropical fruits. So, the heat-trapping effect was well known. De Saussure became curious as to how much heat could be trapped, and built five glass boxes that fit inside each other. The boxes had no bottoms and sat on a black table. He exposed the boxes to the sun for several hours , rotating them to always keep the sun striking the covers. He achieved a temperature of 189.5 degrees F; he recorded, “Fruits… exposed to this heat were cooked and became juicy.”

 
De Saussure then built the first hot-box, made of ½” pine, lined with black cork, and covered with three sheets of glass. The bottom of the box reached 228 degrees F; more than hot enough to boil water.

 
While in South Africa, in the 1830s, the astronomer, Sir John Hershel, made a hot box of mahogany blackend on the inside and surrounded by sand… inside a wood and glass frame. In his notes, he wrote, “As these temperatures far surpass that of boiling water, some amusing experiments were made by exposing eggs, meat etc., (to the heat inside the box); all of which, after a moderate length of exposure, were found perfectly cooked. On one occasion, a very respectable stew of meat was prepared and eaten… with no small relish by the entertained bystanders.”

 
Well, don’t just stand there let’s get cooking! — Don Beckman

I believe in alternative and renewable energy; it should be promoted and encouraged. But let’s not delude ourselves, fossil fuels will never be replaced… period. After all, what are fossil fuels but naturally occurring bio-fuel produced in the factory of mother-earth? Ethanol, and bio-diesel  are nothing more than man attempting to copy nature, and they are still hydrocarbon  fuels. Electric cars are not the answer unless this country is willing to go toward building nuclear power plants on a grand scale; which is something I support, as it would bring this country out of the recession faster than anything else we could do.

The oil spill in the gulf was not an accident, it was a man-caused disaster and the guilty parties in BP, and the government need to be held to accountable. Good actors like Shell oil should not be punished by a moratorium on drilling. The government only needs to see that the current safe-guards and regulations are followed and this particular disaster will not be repeated.

Our national security and our national economy demand reliable, cost-effective energy. That is why I say either…  is a false choice. “All of the above” is the correct answer when it comes to America’s energy policy. Generous tax incentives should be given to promote truly clean energy, including nuclear. If the government would incentivize the country to convert our cars to natural gas we could dramatically reduce the oil we import from our enemies and our allies. Until we come up with a truly cost-effective alternative source, we need to safely continue to drill for oil and gas in this country both on shore and off.  — Don Beckman

Thin film solar cells are not the present, but they are the future. What I mean by that is, for the present thin film technology as such is only feasible for large projects. This is due to the reduced efficiencies of thin film 1% to 11% compared to poly crystalline 12% to 14% or mono crystalline silicon 14% to 17%.    For residential roofs where space is a premium you need the higher efficiency to be cost effective in system sizing. In rural settings where modules might be rack mounted on the ground or pole mounted , and  space is not a factor, thin film modules might be more cost effective because of their lower production costs.

Thin film refers to a variety of products;

Amorphous silicon use vapor deposition, sputtering , and hot wire techniques to deposit on a substrate coated with a layer of transparent conducting oxide. They use a PIN junction rather than a NIP junction to increase the number of electrons crossing the junction.

Micromorphous silicon places a thin film of protocrystalline under the amorphous silicon can increase the open circuit voltage of a cell by increasing the spectrum of light used; more infared.

CadmiumTelluride, and Copper indium gallium selenide are the other two most used compounds used in thin film manufacturing, and have higher efficiencies .

Then there are the photochemical cells, these include dye sensitized cells called (Gratzel cells), and polymer  or organic cells. These show great promise as they can be produced on high speed printing presses, but have the lowest efficiency 1% to 5% .

There is tremendous ‘R and D’ going on in thin film that may one day lead to a solar roofing membrane, or solar window tinting. This is where solar becomes an intrinsic part of building constuction and not just an add on.

That is why I think Thin Film is the future of solar cell technology.

What is electricity? Is it just the flow of electrons or is it ‘Magic?’ The answer to both is ‘yes’.

You can see it ; lightning, the spark between your hand and the door knob. You can smell it; the Ozone after a lightning strike. You can hear it; the clap of thunder, or the snap, crackle, pop or an arc. And believe me as an electrician of 20 years, if it bites you , you can taste it. That is the black magic side of it, on the white-magic side, we have all the benefits. It is up to us to control  this awesome power and use it for good.

Electricity is only looking for one thing, a pathway to ground or, ‘earth’ as the Brits say. It will use any conductive pathway, including you. And if it has no pathway, the charge will build up until it can jump to ground. It can even use dust floating in the air as a conductor, and if it is combustible dust like flour, it can cause a major explosion.         

While some say AC is more dangerous, — enough DC  can burn ,cripple, and kill you just as dead. This is one of the main reasons that solar panels should always be handeled with care. There is no off-switch on a solar panel and if the sun is shining - the panel is energized. This is why proper grounding is so important on any electrical system, especially solar. It takes time and effort to make sure that the grounding on a system meets code (NEC 2008,) but it is time well spent.

There are all kinds of safety equipment that will allow you to work on energized systems and circuits, but my advice is just don’t do it. The Occupational Safety  and Health Administration ( OSHA ) has strict guidelines on lock-out / tag-out procedures. Lock-out tag is used when a circuit to be worked on is de-energized, (turned off.) It is then locked in the off position with padlocks belonging to supervisors and the electrician who will be working on the circuit. Each padlock has a tag of the person holding the key  and the time and date of when the circuit was locked out. When the work is finished each person removes their lock and tag and the circuit can be re-energized.

Electrical work should always be left to the pros, not just for safety’s sake ,but also from an insurance and liability stand point.

– Don beckman

Roofs  -  the bottom of the top

While not part of a photovoltaic system –  roofs usually are the foundation of the array and as such demand special attention. Besides orientation and available space, there are many other roof factors to account for when doing a site survey.

- The age of the roof

- The type of material: asphalt, s-curve tile, flat concrete tile, wood shake, ect.

- The rafter spacing and size

- The slope of the roof

- How and where safety line for worker body harnesses will be attached

The condition and age of a roof is critical to the homeowner’s pocket book. It makes no sence to install a PV System on a roof that is going to need replacing in a year or two. At the very least you should have the home owner sign off on placing a new array on an old roof.

The type of roofing material determines the mounting structure for the rails and these vary widely in cost and labor-time to install. Also some jurisdictions have codes on the number of layers of shingles a roof may have, so always check local building codes.

Always check the attic for rafter spacing and accessibility, as it might be necessary to send a team member to help locate attachment points.

The roof-slope is determined by local building codes that take into account wind and snow loads. Be sure to check with the authority having jurisdiction on the weight and placement of the array.

And Last, First, and Always - think safety. A single accident has put a lot of companies out of business. Safety pays in worker productivity, reduced insurance  costs, and job site liabilities.  Housekeeping is a major safety factor and inspires confidence in the homeowner as to your professionalism.

- Don Beckman

Don Beckman here…. Welcome to my blog. I encourage you to leave a comment, ask a question, give a suggestion (or even a criticism.)  I check my blog everyday, and will always respond in 24 hours.  — Thanks for stopping by.