During a power outage, you may have groped your way through a hall or stairwell, praying that the lights come on soon. Today's developers are installing solar and other equipment to produce on-site power that runs when storms or fires disrupt electrical utilities.
In the Warehouse District in downtown New Orleans, developer Erik Beelman has taken three, adjacent structures on St. Joseph Street -- two historic and one new building called St. Joe Lofts -- and made their lobbies, hallways and all common areas energy self-sufficient, using roof solar equipment and batteries. Those areas are off the power grid controlled by Entergy New Orleans. "By producing power for common areas, we save about $7,000 per year," Beelman calculated. Tenants in the buildings' 61 units buy electricity from Entergy, however.
Beelman said, "we have solar electric systems on the tops of the two historic buildings, and use two different types of panels." Traditional SunPower 215 panels, measuring 2 feet by 4 feet, are braced on one roof. "On another building with a flat roof, we use UniSolar thin film solar modules, which are less traditional and are basically flat, solar mats." The three feet wide mats are glued to the roof.
A storage shed houses batteries to power a backup system, he said. "Solar power charges the batteries and power is stored in them, so at night or on days without much sunlight, power is coming from the batteries."
St. Joe produces what it needs, but if any power remains unused, the complex can't export it to the Entergy grid because of restrictions on downtown, secondary networks, Beelman said.
Entergy New Orleans has a "net metering" program that allows residential and commercial customers and schools generating their own power -- using solar panels or other devices -- to receive credit for unused power provided to the utility, said Philip Alison, spokesman for Entergy New Orleans. "However, due to safety and reliability concerns, we don't allow interconnected generation or net metering in certain areas -- including Central Business District underground, secondary networks; spot network grids; and downtown, underground radially-fed installations."
But overall, he said, most of the utility's customers are allowed to install interconnected generation, and about 200 clients across the city participate in net metering.
Nonetheless, "it's rare for a customer to actually produce more electricity from their solar generator than they consume," Alison said. "Entergy provides them power for their remaining electricity needs."
Meanwhile, the city's Lower Ninth Ward neighborhoods are being rebuilt with fewer kilowatts in mind. But so far, "the only zero-electricity building that I know of in the city is our Global Green demonstration house in Holy Cross," said Beth Galante, director of Global Green USA's New Orleans office. That structure at 409 Andry St., next to the Mississippi River levee, has photovoltaic solar panels, a geothermal heat pump for cooling and heating and a vegetated roof. Other conservation features include a high-performance building envelope and energy-efficient appliances and materials. The house, which will be sold to a home buyer some day, requires 73% less energy than a traditional residence.
Galante said, "photovoltaic panels are expensive but prices are declining, mainly because China has been mass producing them recently." And, she said, an item that's within the budget of average New Orleans residents is a solar water heater. Using sunshine to heat water can reduce home gas or electrical bills by up to 25%.
Galante said, "we're working on a project with a new business -- a renewable energy company -- to help homeowners install solar heaters at no- or low-upfront cost. We're looking at starting the program in Orleans and Jefferson Parishes, and then expanding throughout the state."
Home energy bills can swell because of hot water used for showers, cooking and laundry. "As the mother of a teenager, I can tell you that the expense of running showers and washing towels and clothes really adds up," Galante said.
A big, first step that residents can take to cut energy bills is to install energy-saving appliances and insulate homes, she advised.
Global Green's Holy Cross project has already built five homes, and plans to erect an 18-unit apartment building and a community development center with banking facilities, groceries, meeting spaces and an environmental education center. All structures are designed to slash usage of electricity and other fuels. "The development center can provide electricity from its solar panels if the power grid goes down in an emergency," Galante said.
At St. Joe Lofts, which is an artists' community, Beelman used energy-saving windows, insulation, wall boards, and highly efficient Energy Star appliances. Tenants' utility bills are low as a result. "We've attracted an incredibly talented group of painters, actors, graphic designer, choreographers and musicians, who can walk to the area's museum and galleries," Beelman said. "But what I actually hear most is that they like their low energy bills."
Jamar Pierre, mural painter and art instructor, said, "since I moved into St. Joe this spring, my energy bills have been $50 a month, way down from $250 when I lived in a shotgun house and $500 in one brutal month back when everyones' pipes froze." At the end of his work day, Pierre likes coming home to what he said is the Warehouse District's greenest building and the area's only, planned residence for artists. Something that's been a hit with tenants, he said, is St. Joe's solar trash cans.
Beelman said the big, trash cans look like mailboxes with a solar panel on top. Using sensors, the units compact trash until it reaches a certain height. "Some U.S. municipalities use them to save on storage costs and pickups by garbage trucks," he said. "We wanted to have a couple of these cans at St. Joe to stimulate green awareness, and then maybe the city will use them one day to reduce its carbon footprint."
Beelman has been approached by entrepreneurs trying to set up charging station for electric vehicles. "This is something I'm looking at, and we're in a good location for it, but right now St. Joe Lofts is producing just enough power for our common areas," he said.
So what's the future for low-electricity buildings in the city and elsewhere? You may have heard more bad than good about solar over the years -- that it's a costly alternative to fossil-fuel technologies; installations take up too much room and don't produce in prolonged, rainy or cloudy weather; and Louisiana jobs depend on oil and gas. But newer, solar designs are using technologies that overcome some of those disadvantages.
As for jobs, they're on the construction and installation sides. Zero-energy buildings are sprouting in the western U.S., Canada and Asian cities. In the U.S., federal agencies and the military are intent on saving energy. Last year, the nation's largest, net-zero energy office building, the National Renewable Energy Lab's, $64 million Research Support Facility opened in Golden, Colo. Also in Colorado, plans are to turn the 92-year-old Wayne Aspinall Federal Building and Courthouse in Grand Junction into the country's first, net-zero energy, historic building by early 2013. And six U.S. Army bases are slated to produce as much energy and water as they consume by 2020.
This article was published in "The Louisiana Weekly" in the August 1, 2011 edition.