Sister Mary Ann (photo at left) is administrator for Sisters Hill Farm in Dutchess County, New York. In 1916 the farm in Stanfordville was willed to her order, the Sisters of Charity of New York. Their motherhouse is at the College of Mount Saint Vincent in the Bronx. One would hardly expect a congregation primarily of school teachers in the city to own and run a farm!The land was worked until the 1940s; then it was allowed to lay fallow, except for hay production. In 1998 the Sisters made organic farming part of their environmental ministry, alongside their work of advocacy to clean up the Hudson River.

Sisters Hill is a CSA (community supported agriculture) farm with that grows five acres of vegetables, feeding more than 200 families who each purchase a share of the produce. Because the cost of shares is on a sliding scale, those in need can be fed. Farmer Dave serves as a mentor to apprentices and volunteers, who learn how to practice sustainable agriculture.

In order to meet some of the energy needs of the farm, twelve solar panels were installed in 2007 and twenty-eight panels were installed in 2009. A picture and technical description of the PVC panels can be viewed on the web site of the company that installed them, Hudson Valley Clean Energy.

Patricia K. Townsend – NYIPL Board Member

“These projects recognize the best and brightest solar projects and individuals in the Empire State,” said NYSEIA Executive Director Gail Markets.

NYSEIA President Ron Kamen was recognized as the 2011 Solar Industry Champion. Kamen, also chairman at EarthKind Energy in Kingston, has served as president of the membership association since 2009 and has more than 20 years of experience in the energy industry. Kamen and the association have been strong supporters of the Solar Jobs Bill, among other statewide policies and initiatives.

Other winners of the 6KC awards presented at the association’s annual meeting at Tappan Hill Mansion in Tarrytown on Sept. 21 were:

• Best Solar Thermal Project of the Year – Bright Power of New York, for the BronxPro Real Estate Management University Avenue Consolidated III project. One of the city’s largest and most sophisticated solar thermal installations, the project included 92 flat plate solar collectors atop four multi-family affordable apartment buildings within a two-block radius in the Bronx. This system with advanced monitoring helps to keep affordable housing more economical by saving over one-third of the energy that would have been spent on domestic hot water heating at these buildings.
• Best Photovoltaic Project of the Year – BP Power, part of BP Alternative Energy, for the Long Island Solar Farm, a solar energy project at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton. The project will produce and sell enough solar energy to power 4,500 typical Long Island homes under a 20-year power purchase agreement to the Long Island Power Authority. The project demonstrates that large scale solar can be developed outside of the southwestern U.S. in a manner that is respectful of local constituents, as well as the local environment.
• Best Commercial Roof Top Project – Hudson Valley Clean Energy of Rhinebeck for installing a clean energy system at Brotherhood Winery, America’s oldest winery in Washingtonville. The 81.7 kilowatt (kW) system installed in November 2010 is helping to offset the electrical needs of the bottling plant by 33 percent and saving approximately 73 tons of CO2 from entering the earth’s atmosphere each year.
• Best Ground Mount Project – Eldor Contracting Corp. of Holtsville, for a 50 kW project situated atop the Town of Islip Blydenburgh Landfill in Hauppauge. The power produced from this project will reduce the consumption from onsite methane gas pumps that run mostly throughout the year.
• Best Integrated/Innovative Building -The Radiant Store in Malta for a radiant pool at the Koumanis residence in Saratoga Springs. This project is the first to incorporate solar thermal radiant with a “green” high efficiency pool in the U.S.
• Best Federal Government Project – SunWise Technologies of Kingston for the Department of Veterans Affairs’ solar electric installations at facilities in Albany, Buffalo and Syracuse. The three rooftop systems will generate 113 kW DC or almost 125,000 hours of electricity a year, saving $18,000 annually in utility costs and eliminating an estimated 115,000 pounds of CO2 per year.
• Best New York Government Project – Solar Liberty in Buffalo for the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority (NFTA) facility project, a 250 kW roof-mounted photovoltaic system providing about 6 percent of the electricity required by the Frontier Garage, one of three bus garages that the NFTA operates in Buffalo. Some 1,100 solar panels are providing on-site generation for the facility and helping to lower greenhouse gas emissions by 150 tons a year.

The second annual 6KC award program is named for 6,000 degrees Celsius, the temperature of the surface of the Sun. NYSEIA created the 6KC Awards to recognize tangible solar successes of specific projects and individuals, not theories or concepts that have yet to reach the surface.

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His brother-in-law, John Wright, and some friends and family came over to see the new rig.

“And they would say it’s cool — we would love to have one on our house,” Wright said.

“For the first 10 systems, it was mostly friends and family’s houses, and it just started to take off,” Wright said.

So, a business was born, and that was nearly 10 years ago.

Now, despite a long national recession with a subpar recovery, the company has grown to about 40 employees, and business is still pretty good, Wright said.

The Business Excellence Award for Innovation stems in large part from the company’s achievement of turning its own facility in Rhinebeck into a zero-net-energy building , which means that when all of its energy intake and output is considered, it nets out to zero use, or perhaps a surplus.

“That was pretty impressive,” said Kathleen Hickey, one of the judges in the Business Excellence contest. “They really walk their talk.”

Another judge was Wayne Nussbickel, president of N&S Supply in Fishkill, which sells plumbing, heating and cooling products, including some that are used in the clean-energy field.

“It’s definitely a growth area in our industry, and it has progressed rather slowly because the cost benefits aren’t always there,” Nussbickel said.

But he said Wright and the crew at Hudson Valley Clean Energy have “been ahead of the curve in educating consumers on the benefits.” It’s not always financial, he said, but they are benefits to the environment.

Wright said the economics still rely on public subsidy, which can cut the cost of a system in half. But as power prices rise, as they have steadily been doing, the gap becomes less. Meanwhile, the costs of solar panels, the most expensive part of the system, have benefited from increasing competition.

It takes years to recover the costs through savings on power bills, but the curve favors solar as bills rise.

Utility costs have gone up about 8.5 percent a year over the last 10 years, Wright said.

For the next 10 years, “obviously, legislation is critical,” he said. “We still need some subsidies in order to make renewable energy competitive,” and the industry will grow.

But sometime in that 10 years, he believes, that will change.

“We probably won’t need subsidies. We’ll be at grid parity,” meaning the cost of creating photovoltaic power will be equal to the typical costs of power entering the grid from conventional generators.

Now, a typical home system of 4,000 watts can generate about 5,000 kilowatt-hours a year. A kilowatt is a thousand watts.

That system would cost about $20,000 up front, but after a rebate through the state Energy Research and Development Authority plus state and federal tax credits, the net cost might be about $10,000, he said. Net metering rolls back the utility charges, saving money when the sun shines.

Wright said solar panels are now being manufactured by about 300 companies, versus about 15 when his venture started 10 years ago.

Many of those makers are Chinese, but Wright said he doesn’t use them, preferring panels made in the U.S., Germany and Japan, mainly.

“One of the big reasons for that is we’ll only use companies that have been in business for 25 years or longer. The panels have a 25-year warranty. The last thing I want to do is install a product on somebody’s home and have the company go out of business and have a warranty problem,” Wright said.

Beyond business success, Wright has a feeling his company is accomplishing something valuable for the nation. Reducing reliance on imported energy is a plus, and introducing solar to the home and small-business markets has been rewarding, he said.

“We’re really excited. I think we’ve done a good job of creating awareness in the Hudson Valley that homeowners and business owners can deploy it. It’s reliable and it works,” he said.

“We’ve created a lot of good-paying, stable skilled jobs in the Hudson Valley, and we look forward to being able to grow.”

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First place for design went to “Lunar Cubit,” proposed by a designer team lead by Robert Flottemesch, an artist working with renewable energy and a senior engineer at Hudson Valley Clean Energy, in New York.

Lunar Cubit consists of a large central pyramid surrounded by eight smaller ones that all collect solar energy during the day and illuminate themselves at night in combinations corresponding to the cycles of the moon. The designers envision Lunar Cubit as a landmark — situated just outside the world’s first “zero-carbon” metropolis, Masdar City in the United Arab Emirates — as recognizable as Big Ben or the Empire State Building.

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HUDSON VALLEY CLEAN ENERGY ACQUIRES ADIRONDACK SOLAR,
EXPANDING MARKET INTO CAPITAL DISTRICT AND NORTH COUNTRY
Company also achieves Elite Dealer status from Sunpower

RHINEBECK, NY – Hudson Valley Clean Energy (HVCE), New York State’s largest and most experienced solar electric system designer and installer, has vastly expanded its market area with the company’s recent acquisition of the Albany-based company Adirondack Solar.

“Joining forces with Adirondack Solar enables us to expand our territory from the capital district north into the Adirondacks,” said John Wright, vice president of HVCE, a local family-owned business founded in 2002. “We’ve merged two well-experienced solar companies that have proven track records.”

By teaming with Adirondack Solar, HVCE has effectively doubled its service area to include entire Hudson Valley and Adirondack regions of New York. In addition to its zero-energy headquarters in Rhinebeck, HVCE now also operates the Adirondack Solar portion of the business out of its new office at 125 Wolf Road in Albany.

“The merger of Adirondack Solar and Hudson Valley Clean Energy brings together a synergy in offering customers an unsurpassed solar experience,” said Michael Cellini, director of marketing for Adirondack Solar. “This new relationship creates a benefit to customers from Westchester County up to Lake Placid and from the Massachusetts and Vermont borders out to Utica.”

Combined, HVCE and Adirondack Solar’s collective knowledge gives the newly joined companies an unparalleled understanding of the energy needs of New York State customers.

“Unlike other out-of-state solar companies who have merged because of financial reasons, Adirondack Solar and Hudson Valley Clean Energy have merged to reach a broader base of customers in bringing clean renewable energy to the masses,” said Cellini. “No other solar company can offer this strength and experience in knowing the upstate residential and commercial needs.”

HVCE, named Sunpower Dealer of the Year in 2008, also recently achieved the highly honorable status of Sunpower Elite Dealer by the California-based solar panel manufacturer. Out of the 500 authorized Sunpower dealers in the country, only 15 have been designated Elite Dealers.

“The criteria to achieve Elite Dealer status includes operating for at least three years, high customer satisfaction, high sales volume, and high quality control with no violations,” said Wright.

Sunpower designs and manufactures the most high-performing solar photovoltaic systems in the world, and holds 51 percent of the solar market share in New York State.

“We’re very excited, because Sunpower is the only solar panel manufacturer that has such a rigorous dealer checklist and inspection process,” said Wright. “It also positions us to offer the highest-efficiency solar panels in the country.”

HVCE has designed and installed more than 600 solar systems, making them the most experienced installer in New York – yet they are a local, family-owned business. Most recently, HVCE completed the installation of a roof-mounted solar electric system at the Village Green Apartments in Rhinebeck, which will provide 100 percent of the electricity for all of the complex’s common meters, including common lighting and laundry rooms. HVCE also just completed a 50-kilowatt solar installation at the First Baptist Church in Rhinebeck, and earlier this year the business flipped the switch on its biggest project to date: An 80-kilowatt solar system at Garelick Farms dairy company in Rensselaer.

The company’s Rhinebeck headquarters is the first and only zero-net energy building in New York State and the entire Northeast. The carbon-free building generates more energy than it consumes with solar electricity, geothermal heating and cooling and solar hot water.

For more information on how HVCE can help reduce or eliminate your utility costs, call 845-876-3767 or e-mail info@hvce.com. For customers in the capital district and North Country, contact Adirondack Solar at 866-452-7652. They’ll guide you through every step of the process: from handling all state and utility paperwork, designing and installing the system to your specificities, and servicing your system after installation.

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Most other solar installers can’t even qualify to be a traditional dealer for Sunpower, let alone reach the Elite Status. Sunpower is the most efficient PV product on the market and has a 25-year reputation to uphold. Only a company like Hudson Valley Clean Energy can be relied upon to support Sunpower.

This Elite status gives us the ability to offer our customers not only the greatest PV products on the market but at the most competitive price.

Hudson Highlands Properties installs PV

system on apartment complex’s roofs

It is the Village Green, after all

BY CHRIS MILLER

The installation of a 10kW photovoltaic(PV) system at the home of Hudson Highlands Properties CEO David Silver by Hudson Valley Clean Energy is all that was needed to set the stage for a series of renewable energy projects that would begin at the Village Green apartment buildings in Rhinebeck, NY.

“The orientation of the roofs at the Village Green happened to be perfect for solar panels,” explained Silver. “We decided to install the panels to provide all the common electric.”

Each tenant is still responsible for their own electric bill but the common lights in the hallway, the lights around the property, and the washer and drier room’s electricity is provided by the PV system. Providing power to those areas cost more than$26,000 annually before the installation and now Silver is looking forward to the arrival of his first zero balance bill from Central Hudson after energy back into their grid.

Silver, who has owned Village Green for approximately six years, decided the opportune time to install the PV system was immediately after improvements were made to the buildings.

“We had just redone all the roofs at Village Green so I knew it was a good time to install the panels,” he said. “I had just replaced all the sheathing and all the shingles so, structurally, I wouldn’t need work on the roof at any time in the near future.” Hudson Highland Properties initiated the job six months after deciding to implement PV panels on its apartment complex’s roofs and Hudson Valley Clean Energy (HVCE) began work on the installation immediately. Silver stated that working with HVCE has been a good experience; citing the quality, craftsmanship and the cleanliness of the installation.

Hudson Highlands Properties was able to obtain an accelerated depreciation due to having the PV installation on a commercial property. When he receives his grant from the government and all the numbers are tallied with the accelerated depreciation, the system and its installation will have a cost of $50,000. By the third year, money will be made from the investment.

Silver stated that the PV installation on the roof also removes any worry about increasing prices of that commodity used in the common areas that would be passed back to the tenants.“My philosophy is if I can save some money and pass it back to the tenants to make it more affordable so they will stay and I will have less vacancies – that’s a good investment,” he expressed. “There’s always a lot of maintenance in the apartment business. The great thing about a PV system is there’s no maintenance what-so-ever and it is immediately paying you back. When you go out on a nice sunny day and you see that meter going backward and you don’t have to do anything, that’s a good feeling. My yearly bills were $25,000and now they’re zero.”

The Hudson Highlands Properties CEO noted they are also looking to do something similar on their much larger Hudson View Park 550-unit apartment complex in Beacon and the new Rhinebeck Commons housing project near the Village Green.

“Rhinebeck Commons is already approved. Those houses will be, on average, about 2,500 square feet. Those seven houses will all be geothermal,” noted Silver. “We’ve been installing solar panels, geothermal, and foam insulation on the houses that we’re building because we think it’s just the responsible thing to do. As a small company we feel there’s no better way to change things than by just going ahead, getting started and doing it.”

The video hits YouTube today! Check out HVCE Office Manager Jacqi Anderson talk about renewable energy, solar power and spinning the meter backwards in Hudson Valley WOW TV’s Spring home and garden edition. Watch here!

The law goes into effect immediately, according to the Alliance for Clean Energy NY.

Hudson Valley Clean Energy is thrilled that non-residential customers can now take full advantage of net metering. We’d love to help your business get started. Call us today!