Solar And Water: A Growing Combination

*Editor's Note: I was cleaning out the SJVCEO blog archives last week and came across this draft post authored by the one and only Sandy Nax!  Going by the date of the draft I can only figure that Sandy had worked on this prior to his departure from SJVCEO in May 2012 and never had a chance to hit the 'publish' button. So, Sandy I hope you don't mind our using your words one more time!  -CBK

Many people equate solar power with rooftops, and that's true. More property owners - commercial and residential - are installing solar panels over their heads to cut power bills and carbon footprint. Check out what Toys 'R' Us is doing in New Jersey.

But solar energy is popping up all over the place. In backpacks. With the military in Afghanistan. On parking structures and as window coverings. And, increasingly, on or around water.

Solar is appearing at wastewater treatment plants, vineyard irrigation ponds and in settling ponds at gravel mines. There is even research into getting solar power from the ocean.

This New York Times story, which I read in the San Jose Mercury News, notes that solar panels are sitting atop pontoons at Far Niente in Wine Country. It quotes a winery official saying that vineyards are expensive real estate, and placing a solar array on the pond means no vines are removed.

Solar energy systems also are gaining a following at wastewater treatment plants here in the San Joaquin Valley, where power bills run high in the blazing summer.

The cities of Tulare and Madera use solar at their plants. Learn more about those projects here and here. Water transfer is expensive, and solar can help cut costs. We keep hearing that more cities are considering following suit. This Sign on San Diego story has more on how solar works at such plants.

Opportunities for solar will become even greater as technology improves, costs decrease and it becomes more mainstream. Water-related solar increases those possibilities even more.

Sandy's now in Sacramento working for the California Department of Toxic Substances Control and still managing to write...a lot.  Seriously, Google it! 

Photo of solar on pond at Far Niente Winery by winebusiness.com

Wellness Wednesday: Wait, What the WWTF?

It’s easy to take what seem like the simple things in life, like running water, for granted. You turn on the faucet and out it comes. You flush the toilet and there it goes. Your sprinklers go off like clockwork. I was taught the importance of water conservation (e.g. turn off the faucet while you brush your teeth and whatnot) but not until a recent visit to the City ofWoodlake’s Waste Water Treatment Facility (WWTF) did I truly grasp the consequences of my actions and the ‘big picture’ when it comes to water use.

A waste water treatment facility is the destination for all waste water that travels through our complex sewer systems. This can be from our homes (toilets, baths, showers, kitchens, sinks, etc.), industry, and storm water runoff. A lovely combination of human waste, animal waste, oil and grease, and whatever else finds its way into the system go through a series of processes at the facility in order to treat it so that it may be discharged into a body of water, used as irrigation, or even put back into the groundwater supply. That is the overly simplified explanation so you can visit good ol’ Wikipedia for some great diagrams. The largest gag reflex point of Courtney and my tour of Woodlake’s WWTF would have to have been at the very beginning where solid wastes that cannot proceed through the treatment facility are disposed of into the trash to be taken to the dump. Nothing was even processing at the time we stood there but I could only imagine. Close second was standing on the catwalk over the bubbling waste water as it was being treated – see photos for full effect. The most amazing part of our tour was that while I was thoroughly disgusted, I was also equally fascinated.

It doesn’t take a genius to realize that these complex processes to treat waste water take a huge amount of energy. My personal adventures in benchmarking municipal energy use and seeing the utility bills related to running these facilities caused my jaw to drop. According to the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), ‘municipal water supply and waste water treatment systems are among the most energy-intensive facilities owned and are operated by local governments, accounting for about 35% of energy used by municipalities’. You can’t deny the obvious link between water and energy; in fact, this is something the VIEW Partnership hopes to address in the coming year. The City of Woodlake wisely incorporated energy efficiency measures into the development of their treatment facility which will help with operation costs.

I think it goes without saying that these facilities are not only related to energy but also to our health. Without these treatment facilities…well, I don’t need to spell it out - just think about it. Proper collection, treatment, and disposal of waste water are crucial for human and environmental health. Water contamination can lead to cholera, typhoid, parasites, and Hepatitis – just to name a few illnesses.  

My visit to Woodlake’s facility was a reminder to be cautious as to what I put down the drain and to be thankful for our municipalities for allowing us safer and healthier lives.  Hats off to you, Woodlake, and congrats on the grand opening of your new facility!

PHOTOS (from C. Kalashian)

Solar's Emerging Power In Central California

Solar power continues to expand in the central San Joaquin Valley, where projects in Fresno and Tulare counties are coming online. Today, PG&E symbolically flips the switch on three power stations near Five Points that will deliver enough solar energy to run 15,000 houses. Here is more from The Fresno Bee.

And here is a report on an interesting project a county away, where Dinuba officials will affix more than 4,700 solar panels to a landfill, and then use the 1 megawatt of power to operate the city's wastewater treatment plant. Typically, those types of facilities are among a city's biggest energy hogs.

Dinuba isn't the first city to use solar energy to decrease power bills at its water treatment plant, and likely won't be the last, as we reported in this blog that outlined similar projects in the Valley - and other possible uses for solar.

Solar is making its way onto rooftops, into agriculture operations and even onto roads. How much it expands remains to be seen, but the potential is sunny, considering California's 33 percent renewables mandate, the falling cost of residential systems and improving technology.

Just yesterday, folks at at UC Merced (oh, how we love UC Merced and its top-notch research programs!) announced a new kind of solar system that doesn't have to track the sun. Read more here in the Merced Sun-Star.

Maybe, Gov. Jerry Brown was right when he predicted a solar revolution in California.

Tulare Project A Showcase For Renewable Energy

When it comes to on-site energy generation, the city of Tulare is in some pretty heady company.

The community of 60,000 people uses biogas and fuel cells, and is installing solar power to help power its wastewater treatment plant. The ambitious clean-energy program, described in this case-study analysis, netted the city a 16th-place ranking on the Environmental Protection Agency's national list of top 20 producers of on-site power. That follows an award from the California Sustainability Alliance last year.

With 9.5 million kilowatts of annual generation coming from green power, this city in the resource-rich San Joaquin Valley ranked ahead of supermarket chain Safeway and just behind Macy's stores in California and Hawaii. And those production figures are likely to increase when city officials finish installing the fourth fuel cell and grant-funded solar plant.

About 38% of the electricity used to power the wastewater treatment plant comes from on-site green sources. The completion of the solar system (partially financed with Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grants) and additional fuel cell will boost on-site green power usage even more - probably enough to push it up to 13th on the list - just behind Kohl's Department Store, said Lewis Nelson, city public works director.

Nelson says fuel cells are well suited for wastewater treatment plants. In 2010, Tulare was expected to save about $570,000 with the system.

The city's investment after a $4 million incentive was $3 million, which means it could recoup its costs within five years.

Tulare is the largest governmental user of electricity in Tulare County, much larger even than Visalia which has twice the population. "That is because we have seven large cheese plants in Tulare and a separate industrial wastewater treatment plant for that high-strength wastewater," Nelson says.

The city's new industrial treatment plant, with a capacity of 12 million gallons per day, is tied with one in South Carolina for the largest in the nation, he says. It is the fourth-largest in the world.

Tulare is the only San Joaquin Valley city on a list that includes San Diego (No. 2 with 69 million kilowatts of green power generated from biogas, small hydro and solar), San Jose (No. 6 and biogas), San Francisco (No. 9 with biogas and solar) and Portland (No. 10 with an impressive mixture of biogas, small hydro, solar and wind).

The largest on-site green-power generator is Kimberly-Clark, which produces a whopping 176.5 million kilowatts through biomass. The U.S. Air Force (biogas, solar and wind), Walmart in California and Texas and a BMW manufacturing plant in South Carolina round out the top five.