Hughson Nut gets energy efficient, installs solar

Hughson Nut Inc. has installed a 586 kilowatt solar system at its 50,000-square-foot almond processing facility.

The Hughson, Calif.-based company processes almonds for the confectionery, bakery, cereal, health and snack food industries. It processes and markets its own almonds and those of select growers to worldwide customers.

Martin Pohl, a principal of the company, says the project made a lot of sense. In a statement, he says the project "helps us meet our dual goals of environmental sustainability while reducing energy costs for the benefit of our growers and partners."

Energy from the sun

Solar continues to make inroads on rooftops of industry, government and commercial sectors as well as private homes. Despite some hiccups, heated competition and manufacturers pulling the plug, installed solar continues to increase in California and nationwide.

According to the Solar Energy Industries Association, the U.S. solar market grew to $6 billion in 2010, up 67 percent from $3.6 billion in 2009. And that trend is expected to continue, with solar photovoltaic installations projected to double again in 2011. The Association says at year end 2010, the United States had 2,593 megawatts of installed solar electric capacity.

Rooftops are considered the next frontier for solar. Before he left office, former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger talked about blanketing the many warehouses in the state with solar panels. Companies like Hughson Nut are trend setters in that respect.

Trend setter

Others will be watching. Pohl says he's more than willing to share his experience.

When the San Joaquin Valley agriculture industry hears of the results, growers, dairy operators and processors will weigh the information carefully. If they get a good report, expect to see more panels going up on other facilities throughout the region.

Pohl started with solar two years ago on his own house. "I wanted to learn more," he says.

Then Pohl's son installed solar on his seasonal almond hulling operation and found he was able to cover nearly all his power costs by banking energy throughout the year. "He built up credit to use when fall came," Pohl says.

Start with energy efficiency

Hughson Nut then enlisted the aid of the Turlock Irrigation District, which provides its power. The utility sent out engineers to perform a detailed energy audit to see where energy efficiency retrofits could be made to lighting and other electrical consuming devices. One big consumer they found was metal halide lighting in the company's cold storage facility that remained on almost all the time.

Those lights were swapped for energy efficient T5 high-bay fluorescent lighting that came on only when people entered the facility. Other retrofits included existing compressors, which were replaced with new units designed to work efficiently with variable frequency drives. Big energy savers.

"We've done everything we know to do to cut down our power usage," Pohl says. "It made a huge difference."

Cenergy Power installed Hughson Nut's system.

Clean Energy Could Be The NEXT BIG THING!

First, Ernst & Young referred to clean technology as the next industrial revolution. Now, Seattle investment firm Cascadia Capital likens sustainable industries to the early years of the Internet, saying in a new report:

"The clean energy sector is going through the same re-birth process. . . We are seeing better companies, better technology, better business models and better executives in this industry every day. We strongly believe that a lot of the companies we see and work with will be well known companies in the 2013-2014 timeframe. Green companies are rising from the ashes."

This shows once again that the clean-energy industry isn't dying as many claim. It is emerging, staggering forward unevenly like a toddler growing up. The implosion of government guarantee-recipient Solyndra wasn't a failure as much as it was a sign of maturation. It couldn't compete and, in business as in nature, the weak are early casualties.

As former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said at current Gov. Jerry Brown's climate conference last week: "All kinds of businesses failed at the same time as Solyndra, but no one hears about that. You make mistakes and you fail. That is the way business is."

Here is more on the conference.

Cascadia notes, as we have many times, that investors, entrepreneurs and researchers have been joined by the big bucks of Corporate America. Companies such as Boeing and Walmart see profit in sustainability. You can bet these large corporations wouldn't be investing in it if they didn't expect rosy returns at the end.

They are saving millions from efficiency measures, such as lighting retrofits that really do pay off (How about $300,000 per year for Canon!). They are boosting their sustainability departments and are joining governments, professional sports and schools in pledging to use more renewable energy. (more here, here and here.)

One of the world's richest men just announced plans to buy into his second gigantic solar farm - this one in Arizona - to complement one in California, a state with the most ambitious renewables mandate in the nation, an equally ambitious cap-and-trade plan and a robust green chemistry program.

Companies are even joining forces with state governments to build new cities dedicated to testing clean energy. Check out this fascinating proposal out of New Mexico, where a whole new kind of company town is in the offing.

Clearly, the green movement is gaining, even if the GOP slate of presidential candidates ignores it. Tom Engelhardt in a TomDispatch.com post entitled, "Restless Planet" calls it the "Fifth Occupation," and claims its already bubbling to the surface, much as the methane is bubbling up from formerly frozen terrain. See this New York Times piece.

"When they stand their ground and chant 'We exist!' in anger, strength, and wonder, maybe then we can really tackle climate change and hope it isn’t too late," he writes. "Maybe the fifth occupation is the one we’re waiting for -- and don't for a second doubt that it will come. It’s already on its way. "

Video: California Gov. Jerry Brown at CODA plant

Rooftop solar & decentralized generation can save California

Rooftops may not be the final frontier, but they do provide ample fields for cultivating solar panels.

So says Al Weinrub, who has penned "Community Power: Decentralized Renewable Energy in California." Weinrub is a member of the Sierra Club California Energy-Climate Committee and serves on the Steering Committee of the Bay Area’s Local Clean Energy Alliance. He said he relied extensively on work from both.

"Decentralized generation means that local residences, businesses, and communities become electric power producers," he writes. "Businesses with large rooftops or parking lots can become small power companies that feed electricity into the grid."

The beauty is that these buildings are already connected to the electrical grid and have an existing footprint, benefits that a remote solar installation doesn't always have. Industrial solar on empty land requires extensive permitting, studies and review of environmental impact, especially if its federal. Those panels definitely can change a picturesque landscape.


Buildings offer many acres of alternative energy opportunity. Just check out John Majoris' work at solaraerials.com for a King Kong view of some pretty amazing projects.

Rooftop power

Sandy Nax and I came to a similar conclusion over the the past year or so. Actually our former governor said the same thing and we agreed: The otherwise unused rooftops of the acres of warehouses in Fresno/San Joaquin Valley provide a great place for easy-to-permit solar and a cheap additional crop to be farmed on those rather ugly asphalt-topped fields.

I apologize in advance to any owners of said structures who have added white "cool roofs," that drastically lower cooling costs by reflecting sunlight.

Some companies in California already are moving ahead with industrial solar on commercial warehouses. IKEA, for example, plans to install 7,980 panels on its Tejon distribution center just off Interstate 5 at the foot of the Grapevine south of Bakersfield. The installation will generate 2.8 million kilowatt hours annually, enough to power 251 houses. The retailer also plans solar systems at stores in Burbank, Costa Mesa, Covina, East Palo Alto, Emeryville, West Sacramento and San Diego.

Solar for cities

At an Atwater City Council meeting, the concept was raised of using solar panels to defray the intensive costs of pumping water to meet summertime demands. All small jurisdictions in the San Joaquin Valley, like many across the nation, are hard-hit due to reduced revenues from dramatic declines in real estate values.

For instance my house in Clovis is now worth $120,000 on a good day. I bought it in 2005 for $269,000. Such dives in value cut revenues from property-tax dependent cities and counties in half and result in tough challenges come budget time.

Solar isn't perfect. But it does offer an avenue to electrical generation far cleaner than fossil fuels. Our mission would be to spell out costs, find the best sites and interpret the volume of data out there, making it easier on over-worked municipal staffers.

Change isn't simple

Weinrub doesn't say it will be easy. Quite the opposite. "Achieving this vision will require overcoming obstacles from the energy and utility industries, public agencies, and other interests vested in the century-old investor-owned utility model," he says. The potential is a 2010 commercial rooftop capacity of 19,323 megawatts, he says.

The solution? Weinrub suggests new policies and programs. One is community choice energy, "which allows a city or county to aggregate the electricity demand of all customers," and the other a more controversial concept called a feed-in tariff, which is used in Germany and elsewhere to bring the cost of alternatives in line with conventional energy on the grid.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency also likes the idea of using already occupied space. It is soliciting applications from communities and other governmental bodies that want to evaluate the potential development of renewable energy on potentially or formerly contaminated properties.

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory will make the call, figuring what works best where. The plan is to create jobs and increase renewable energy.

Maximizing alternative energy opportunities while minimizing impact. Sounds like a great idea.

Photo courtesy John Majoris at solaraerials.com.

Schwarzenegger receives another green award

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger nailed his second environmental honor in as many weeks as the Beautiful Earth Group him with its 2010 Green Governor of the Year Award.

"Governor Schwarzenegger has worked tirelessly to protect the environment and to create sustainable solutions in California," said Lex Heslin, the group's president and CEO, in a statement. "He has advanced the research and generation of clean energy light years ahead of other states."

On Dec. 2, Schwarzenegger got a big vote of confidence from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency when the agency gave him its Climate Change Champion Award. Jared Blumenfeld, EPA’s Regional Administrator for the Pacific Southwest, lauded Schwarzenegger, for his "extraordinary vision and leadership as an early, ardent and articulate champion in the defense of our planet against global climate change."

Beautiful Earth was founded in 2008 and is currently developing a 38-megawatt solar energy project in the Mojave Desert, scheduled to be finished in 2012.

Heslin said Schwarzenegger was the first governor named.

The California governor didn't appear to mind.

"California is showing the world that you can protect the environment and grow the economy at the same time," Schwarzenegger said. "We are creating a new economic foundation for the 21st Century built on clean fuel, clean energy and clean cars that is turning California into the green capital of the nation and the world, and I couldn't be more proud of these accomplishments."

CA guv wins EPA award, but what's next for clean energy?

The Governator may be going the way of the "Expendables," but down the road he's likely to be remembered for his progressive clean energy policies.

From my perch on the nonprofit San Joaquin Valley Clean Energy Organization porch, his efforts, highlighted by his move to create California's Global Warming Solutions Act, requiring the state to develop regulations that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, look pretty remarkable.

We call the governor's measure AB 32. While controversial, many in industry have accepted its consequences. Utilities are increasing their purchase of green-sourced power, and solar and wind farms are getting the green light with increasing rapidity.

Thursday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger received a huge slap on the back from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency when the agency gave him its Climate Change Champion Award.

Jared Blumenfeld, EPA’s Regional Administrator for the Pacific Southwest, lauded Schwarzenegger, for his "extraordinary vision and leadership as an early, ardent and articulate champion in the defense of our planet against global climate change."

The governor's progressive vision is matched by many -- from the ranks of bureaucracy to homes and businesses on Main Street. The desire to pay less every month for electricity or breathe cleaner air is not really a partisan issue. Perspectives may be flavored by blue or red leanings, but the average family tends to maintain common ground on quality of life and what leaves the bank account.

Blumenfeld acknowledged that. "The environment does not know political boundaries. It was created in a presidency of the Republican Party. And we need to encourage that bipartisan support." (Forty years ago by President Richard M. Nixon, by the way. I still have my "Nixon Now More Than Ever" button.)

Blumenthal did say that comes with "huge political risk," but underlined the importance of forging political common ground to solve the increasingly complex and costly environmental issues associated with our current love affair with fossil fuels.

I'm as much of the problem as anyone. I enjoy a comfortable temperature in my office and at home and drive a car, but then I live in California which has a one-person, one-car requirement. I love the gasoline engine. There's nothing like the sound of my 1974 Superbeetle wasting some kid's tuner.

Schwarzenegger took up the challenge of encouraging clean energy when many leaders let the issue slip down their list of priorities. Arguably, it's a sure-fire winner with jobs, reduced reliance on smog-creating technologies and energy Independence as just some of the incentives.

But change is not easy. Corporations rely on energy delivery systems based on refined oil. It's cheap, it works and it's still available, despite resources everyone knows to be finite. And fracking for natural gas has unearthed massive potential domestic reserves. (An aside: I tend to believe natural gas to be a clean fuel, but then I'm from Alaska.)

Future leaders will have to take up the cause. Consumers also can do their parts by embracing the recent wave of energy efficiency products on store shelves and realizing that smart meters can be used for good, not evil.

In his speech accepting the EPA award, Schwarzenegger talked about blanketing the many warehouses in the state with solar panels, being annoyed with China about bragging about its wind-power efforts and California's clean-tech accomplishments.

On the subject of China, he won a round of applause when he said, "So now we broke ground on the biggest in the world and it's bigger, much bigger than theirs, so I'm very happy about that."

The governor said California has out-sized pull. "We are this little, tiny spot but the power of influence that we have is an equivalent of a whole continent," he said.

We should keep that in mind. Here at SJVCEO offices, we recently experienced an example of the increasing interest in energy efficiency. Co-workers Courtney Kalashian and Maureen Hoff were so successful with a program exchanging old incandescent Christmas lights for strings using light-emitting diodes, which use 70 percent less electricity, that people snapped them all up way faster than expected and keep calling for more.

How the movement to embrace energy efficiency and clean energy will unfold is anybody's guess. My compatriot and fellow ex-newsman Sanford Nax and I talk about this subject continually.

Our topics often concern the future of the industry at large and when it will reach mainstream. Some say it has the potential of an economic gold, or green, rush. Big opportunities. Big jobs.

Yeah, right. Where are they?

So while we ponder such topics, we'll think about people like the outgoing governor of this sunny state of California and wonder what's to come and who will head up the charge to wean this nation from the incredibly costly overseas crude.