CSU EXTENSION ENERGY NEWSLETTER Issue 63 March 2016 Welcome to the 63rd issue of the CSU Extension Energy newsletter. This newsletter is distributed as a way to give the public, our partners, and Extension staff updates on CSU Extension energy work and its context in Colorado. Our overall mission is: 1. to empower Coloradans to make more informed energy decisions; and 2. to promote a broad, unbiased understanding of energy issues. Please forward this newsletter to anyone you think might be interested. Also feel free to send us your organization’s energy-related news and events for listing in future newsletters. And don’t forget to Like us on Facebook to get updates on select energy news from Colorado and around the world.

Table of Contents

2016 LUNCH ‘N’ LEARN WEBINARS ............................................................................. 1

INITIAL LESSONS LEARNED FROM SWAP PROJECT ............................................. 2

EV STATION COMING TO BUENA VISTA AS A RESULT OF ASSESSMENT ...... 2

LED LIGHTING TESTS HAVE SURPRISING RESULTS ............................................ 3

SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC SUPPORTS CSU SMART VILLAGE MICROGRIDS ...... 4

RESOURCE SPOTLIGHT: DIY HOME ENERGY AUDIT ............................................ 5

DID YOU KNOW? ............................................................................................................... 6

UPCOMING EVENTS ......................................................................................................... 6

CSU EXTENSION ENERGY RESOURCES................................................................... 7

2016 LUNCH ‘N’ LEARN WEBINARS Big thanks to all of those who participated in our survey about energy webinar topics you’d like to see in 2016. The votes are in and we’re going to kick off the FREE webinar series as follows. All sessions BEGIN AT 12:00PM on the dates listed and will use Adobe Connect – all you need is a computer with speakers. Click here for more information about the webinar series or click the individual links below to register directly for one or more webinars.

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• March 15 – Ray Pierotti with La Plata Electric Association will discuss the latest and greatest in LED technology, including applications for the home and business as well as case studies from southwestern Colorado. Register here.

• May 10 – Patrick Cummins with CSU’s Center for the New Energy Economy will discuss progress on the Clean Power Plan, including the recent stay issued by the Supreme Court and how that may impact Colorado and other Western states. Register here.

We plan to bring webinars to you every other month for the forseeable future and are working on getting speakers on energy storage, home energy, rural energy, and more. Stay tuned!

INITIAL LESSONS LEARNED FROM SWAP PROJECT CSU’s Rural Energy Center has completed solar/wind assessments for 12 agricultural producers participating in our Solar and Wind Assessments for Pivots (SWAP) project sponsored by USDA. It’s still early in the project (with assessments for 30 producers to be completed), but here are our lessons learned to date:

• Even with solar prices coming down, most projects don’t offer a positive net present value without BOTH the 30% federal tax credit and a 25% USDA grant

• Many agricultural producers do not have enough tax liability to take advantage of the federal tax credit

• At the scale appropriate for offsetting pumping electricity, solar PV is more cost-effective than wind even at great wind sites

• Field corners next to center pivot irrigated land are more than sufficient in size to host solar arrays needed to offset pumping electricity

• Utility net metering policies can have a significant impact on the economic feasibility of projects

• Relatively cheap irrigation rates, including many reverse-block rates (where energy used earlier in the year is more expensive than energy used later in the year) are a major challenge for project feasibility

There’s more of course, and we’ll be able to share other detailed lessons as the project moves forward.

EV STATION COMING TO BUENA VISTA AS A RESULT OF ASSESSMENT CSU’s community energy assessment for the Town of Buena Vista, Colorado identified an electric vehicle charging station as a “high priority opportunity” for the Town. This designation was based on indicators such as the number of EVs in Chaffee and adjacent counties, the number of charging stations in those counties, and level of educational attainment in the community. The Town expressed interest in installing a station in order to attract business to its downtown and to encourage EV use by the many users of its River Park. As part of the assessment, CSU’s Rural Energy Center provided assistance to the Town in filling out its grant application to Charge Ahead Colorado for two Level 2 multi-port charging stations. The application, which can cover up to 80% of costs, was approved earlier this year. Buena Vista is now working on installing the stations.

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Two more community energy assessments were completed recently as well for the towns of Wellington and Pagosa Springs. An opportunity was identified for solar PV at Wellington’s wastewater treatment plant, and Pagosa Springs has expressed interest in moving forward with LED lighting at a number of its facilities as well as providing training to realtors on Colorado’s Green MLS. The Rural Energy Center is currently conducting community energy assessments for the Town of Lyons and for Elbert County/the Town of Kiowa.

LED LIGHTING TESTS HAVE SURPRISING RESULTS In informal testing, CSU Extension Energy Specialist Cary Weiner and College of Engineering Senior Research Associate Mike Kostrzewa found some surprising results when comparing various 4’ linear LED tube lights (T8s) to one another and to 4’ linear fluorescent T8 and T12 lamps. Fluorescent T8 lamps are commonly found in commercial settings such as offices and are usually run with electronic ballasts. Fluorescent T12 lamps are older, less efficient, and are often run with magnetic ballasts. LED T8 lamps are now being used to replace fluorescent T8 and T12 lamps. Our results are listed below in order of power consumed (watts).

Lamp Number

of lamps

Ballast/Driver Power (watts)

Lux - 44 inches

from lamp

Initial cost/ lamp

Feit 17W 4 ft. LED T8 2

Philips Advance Optanium 10PA-2P32-LW-N Instant

Start (Electronic) 27 490 $21.97

Phillips 12W 4 ft. LED T8 2

Philips Advance Optanium 10PA-2P32-LW-N Instant

Start (Electronic) 28 499 $19.97

Phillips 17W 4 ft. LED T8 2

Philips Advance Optanium 10PA-2P32-LW-N Instant

Start (Electronic) 31 471 $9.97

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Toggle 16W 4 ft. LED T8 -

ballast bypass* 2 none 31 726 $29.97

Cree 18.5W 4 ft. LED T8 2

Philips Advance Optanium 10PA-2P32-LW-N Instant

Start (Electronic) 37 446 $22.97

Satco Hygrade 28W T8 2

Philips Advance Optanium 10PA-2P32-LW-N Instant

Start (Electronic) 38 294 -

GE 18W LED T8 2

GE Lightech LED21T8/DR/2L (LED

driver) 42 730 $17.01

Satco Hygrade 32W T8** 2

Philips Advance Optanium 10PA-2P32-LW-N Instant

Start (Electronic) 43 336 -

Tungsram F40 CW Hungary

T12 2 Benchlite RL-240-1-TP

(Magnetic) 74 268 -

Feit 17W 4 ft. LED T8 2 Benchlite RL-240-1-TP

(Magnetic) 113 771 $21.97

*Extrapolated from 1 lamp **Extrapolated from the Satco Hygrade 28W T8 Key takeaways:

• LEDs run with fluorescent electronic ballasts drew less power than LEDs run with LED drivers.

• LEDs run with fluorescent magnetic ballasts drew significantly more power and put out significantly more light than T12 fluorescents run with the same ballasts.

• There was significant variance in power drawn between LED T8 brands run with fluorescent electronic ballasts, even though nameplate wattages suggest otherwise.

• Running LED tubes with LED drivers does not draw significantly less power than running an equal number of fluorescent tubes on electronic ballasts, but the light output significantly increases.

Please contact Cary Weiner with questions about the tests.

From www.LEDtronics.com

SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC SUPPORTS CSU SMART VILLAGE MICROGRIDS From Colorado State University “Source” by Anne Ju Manning

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The Smart Village Microgrid laboratory at CSU’s Energy Institute has received a critical equipment donation from Schneider Electric, a company expert in sustainable energy management and industrial automation. The company has given CSU two grid-forming inverters for the lab, now being built at the Powerhouse Energy Campus. The Smart Village Microgrid is a small-scale electrical system that operates independent of national-grid power sources. The system can run renewable sources including solar photovoltaics, wind turbines, thermal, or hydropower. The lab at Powerhouse aims to gain deeper understanding of village-level electrification by modeling remote villages with plug-and-play technologies. CSU researchers are currently working with the government of Rwanda to test and install such microgrids in rural communities without access to traditional electric power. Grid-forming inverters transform direct current and photovoltaic current into alternating current. According to Daniel Zimmerle, lead engineer on the project, initial microgrid deployments will utilize photovoltaics to generate electricity, and batteries to store buffer power. The Schneider inverters provide key components required for that initial demonstration.

RESOURCE SPOTLIGHT: DIY HOME ENERGY AUDIT Interested in making your home more energy efficient but don’t know where to start? Conduct a home energy audit on your own using CSU Extension’s mobile friendly online audit tool! The tool is easy to use and can be adapted for simple walk through assessments that may take only 15 minutes or more in-depth audits that may take an hour. To do the full DIY audit, our list of suggested materials includes a tape measure, thermometer, 5-gallon bucket, and screwdriver. Thermal leak detectors, power monitors, and flicker checkers may be borrowed from a local Extension office to enhance the audit. You can choose to print a blank audit and fill it out as you move around your house or simply fill it out on your mobile device and email the completed version to yourself to get the results. To complete the audit, you are asked to provide rankings from 0-3 for different aspects of your home’s energy use. For example, in the Water Heating section of the audit, if your water heater is hot to the touch you would rank that item a 2 (agree) or 3 (strongly agree). If it is not hot to the touch, you would rank that item a 1. Items that don’t apply to your home would receive a rank of

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0. The audit then tallies up your responses and provides you with a total score, brief summary of what the score means, and a set of recommendations and costs (low to high) for each item ranked with a 2 or 3. The report can be printed or emailed and can be used as a reference for making efficiency improvements over the short-, medium-, or long-term.

DID YOU KNOW? As of late 2015, there was 16.5 megawatts (MW) of community solar in Xcel service territory between 25 different projects in Colorado1. That averages out to 660 kW per solar garden and should produce enough electricity to offset the use of about 3,500 homes. 1 Denver Business Journal, Sept. 16, 2015

UPCOMING EVENTS

• March 7-9 Solar Power Colorado – the Colorado Solar Energy Industries Association annual conference in Broomfield, CO

• March 8 at 6pm Women in Sustainable Energy (WISE) – rural energy panel at the Alliance Center in Denver Register here.

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• March 15 at 12pm LED lighting webinar Register here.

• March 28 at 6pm Solar Options for the Home - talk by CSU Extension Energy Specialist Cary Weiner - Georgetown Heritage Center in Georgetown, CO Register here.

• April 19 at 7pm Peaks and Plains: the story of energy innovation in rural Colorado – talk by Cary Weiner for the Northern Colorado Renewable Energy Society, Odell Brewing in Fort Collins, CO

• April 21 at 12pm Peaks and Plains: the story of energy innovation in rural Colorado – talk by Cary Weiner at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, CO

• May 10 at 12pm Clean Power Plan webinar Register here.

CSU EXTENSION ENERGY RESOURCES

• Like the CSU Extension Energy Facebook page for energy news updates from Colorado and around the world

• Borrow a Home Energy Audit Loan (HEAL) program kit from your local Extension office

• Conduct a DIY home energy audit, solar assessment, or wind assessment • Download a fact sheet or online decision tool • View recorded webinars and videos • Borrow a School Energy Activity Loan (SEAL) program kit • Teach from our Clean Energy Curriculum for Colorado Middle and High Schools • Ask an energy expert • Track energy legislation in Colorado and nationwide using the CSU Center for the New

Energy Economy’s Advanced Energy Legislation Tracker

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