RETSIE A Strange Visit to the Energy Dream Richard Perez Every year the renewable energy industry has a convention, RETSIE (Renewable Energy Technologies Symposium and International Exposition). A mouthful in any languageÉ This convention displays the latest developments in renewable energy sources, and allows industry executives to meet & eat on company expense accounts. Home Power Magazine attended last year's RETSIE as a dream (which few believedÉ); this year we attended as a reality, back issues firmly tucked beneath our arms. Our objective was to cover the convention so that you can be informed of the very latest energy policies and technologies. And maybe sell a few ads so we can keep Home Power coming your way free. Read ahead for the strange and terrible saga of the Home Power Crew in the big city. A Short History of RETSIE Back in the days of energy tax credits and high oil prices, RETSIE was quite an affair. Hundreds of companies attended, displaying their energy wares. Thousands of people, from all over the World, came to see the hardware on display and to attend the seminars. During the last three conventions, attendance has greatly declined. Partly due to cheap energy and partly due to the high price of renting a booth at RETSIE. Companies like Westinghouse, ARCO, and other biggies have no trouble affording the $2,000+ needed to rent a booth, while Mom&Pop Solar can't afford it. We attended without a booth, as walkers on the floor, as did many of the smaller companies whose equipment graces your systems. This year's attendance was down about 60% from last year, which was reportedly over 50% down from 1986. There were less than 50 companies exhibiting their wares at this year's RETSIE, compared with over 150 companies renting booths for RETSIE 1987. This year's RETSIE was held in Santa Clara, California on June 7th through 10th. While Home Power's crew is not at home in urban type settings, we decided to attend and report to you on what's new. Keynote Address The keynote speaker at RETSIE this year was Donna Fitzpatrick, Assistant Secretary, Office of Conservation and Renewable Energy, U.S. Dept. of Energy. Ms. Fitzpatrick discussed the role of renewable energy within the US government's energy plans. We enjoyed Ms. Fitzpatrick's speech. Her clear explanation of what the federal government is doing informed us not to expect much help from the feds in the future. According to Ms. Fitzpatrick, "Among all the energy sectors, the renewables industry is at a disadvantage in the federal budget game, and for several reasons. First, there is no longer a sense of crisis about energy. Secondly, the industry is relatively small and it does not have the political clout which is enjoyed by industries like oil and gas and coal and many other interests. Third, renewables are not geographically concentratedÉ Fourth, we are not proposing any superprojects which total billions of dollars. This is the kind of thing that captures the politicians attention and gets his juices flowing. Fifth and last, there are too many promises which were made in the '70s about plentiful and cheap energy from the sun." Ms. Fitzpatrick then discussed how the renewable energy industry could turn its disadvantages to its gain. First, the lack of a crisis atmosphere allows the industry enough time to do the R&D necessary to make products that work well and last. Secondly, the small size and miniscule political power of the industry means that renewables are not perceived by other energy technologies as competitors. Ms. Fitzpatrick stressed cooperation with nonrenewable forms of energy. She stated that renewables, like PVs, are problem solvers now finding success in niche markets such as telecommunications. Third, on the lack of geographic concentration and thereby political clout, renewable energy sources exist in every state of the Union. Ms. Fitzpatrick stated that the renewable energy industry needed to organize itself into a broadbased coalition of local, state and federal resources. Fourth, on the lack of big projects to attract governments attention. Ms. Fitzpatrick mentioned that this was just as well as the federal government isn't funding many big energy projects these days. Fifth, that there was not much that the industry could do with it's creditability problem other than deliver as promised in the future. Ms. Fitzpatrick spoke of little federal support for home power producers. Federal involvement in renewable energy will remain in research, development, and international marketing. We home power folks are on our own as usual. So what else is new? New Hardware Since the government had little interesting to occupy us we went down to the convention floor to tour the hardware displays. It was gratifying to meet friends face to face after only telephone acquaintances. Every facet of renewable energy was represented, from multimillion dollar cogen projects for factories, to the latest in home sized power inverters, and of course, PVs. It would be impossible in an entire issue of Home Power to tell you all we saw and heard. We've decided to concentrate on equipment that fits into home power systems. If you don't see access info for the companies below it is because they are advertising in this issue, so look up their ad in the Advertiser's Index on page 47. Companies not advertising in this issue have their addresses and phone numbers listed in the comments below. Trace Engineering Steve Johnson and Bob Summers from Trace were on hand showing off their new line of DC to ac power inverters. The big news here is an increase in power output from 1,500 watts to 2,000 watts on Trace's 12 VDC inverter, with the battery charger's increase from 75 to 105 Amps. All this some 33% power increase and the price of the new Trace 2012 inverter is the same as the older, less powerful, 1512 model. Congratulations Trace- Good Work! See Trace ad in this issue for more details. INSERT TRACE PHOTO(S) Kyocera Amercia Kyocera displayed their new photovoltaic powered street lamp. Al Panton of Kyocera told us that their multicrystal PV panels are now warranteed by Kyocera not to lose more than 10% of their rated output in a TWELVE year period. This is two years longer than any other company in the home PV market. Kyocera also has increased panel efficiencies by using a new, anti-reflective, PV cell coating. Kyocera is holding the line on the price of their panels, eventhough the shrinking dollar to yen exchange rate should really raise their panels' prices. INSERT KYOCERA PHOTO(S) Ramona Works Lee Talbot and the Ramona Works' crew demonstrated their new "POWrPAKª". The POWrPAKª contains a Trace 2.O kW. inverter/charger (tricked out with all the options like metering and Turbo!), and a 460 Ampere-hour at 12 VDC Exide battery pack. Both are mounted in a very ingenious metal housing and wiring nexus. The POWrPAKª handles all the following interconnections within its steel frame: battery to inverter, ac output, DC output, DC input (from PVs, etc.), ac input from generator or grid. The unit is highly modular, with plugs to fit just about any situation. The units are available in larger sizes, with up to 4.0 kW. inverter output and twice the battery capacity of the model mentioned above. POWrPAKª offers a flexible, money saving, alternative to continuous generator operation. Run the generator only periodically and store the energy in the batteries. Later use the energy as 120 vac produced by the inverter. Inverter/Battery setups like the POWrPAKª can save generator only users between 50% and 75% on their electricity costs. INSERT RAMONA WORKS PHOTOS Heart Interface Warren Stokes of Heart showed us their new Universal Power Interface. This synchronous, pure sine wave, power inverter can interface DC renewable energy sources like PVs with the commercial utilities' electrical grid. With this machine and enough PVs, a fellow could turn the power company's meter backwards! The HZ12-1500S is rated at 1,500 watts and contains a sophisticated 80 Ampere battery charger. This synchronous inverter can coprocess (provide synchronous power in parallel) with ac generators or even the grid. Heart offers a one year warranty with this inverter, and at additional cost, a five year warranty is available. This inverter offers an efficient (80% to 90%) uninterruptable ac power backup to those on the grid. To home power folks, this inverter provides a pure sine wave output for noise sensitive applications like video and audio equipment. Contact Heart Interface, 811 1st Ave. S., Kent, WA 98032 or call 206-859-0640 or 1-800-732-3201. And tell'em ya saw it in Home Power! INSERT HEART PHOTO Photoelectric, Inc. SolarInverter¨ is a 3.0kW., 48VDC to 120/240 vac 60 cycle, synchronous, sine wave inverter. It is designed with one purpose in mind-- running your commercial electric meter backwards! The SolarInverter¨ allows the user to sell power to his commercial utility whenever his PVs are making more energy than he is using. While this inverter can be used with batteries, it is primary intended to run without batteries, directly from PV produced energy. The design of the SolarInverter¨ is unique; it uses a large toroidial (donut shaped) transformer rather than the rectangular laminated transformers used in almost all other inverters. The toroidial transformer contributes to the high (93% to 95%) efficiency of the sine wave SolarInverter¨. This inverter also has the most developed digital metering system of any inverter I've ever seen. Quantities measured are input voltage, input amperage, output voltage, output amperage, output kiloWatts, output kilovars, and output kiloWatt-hours. Contact Photoelectric, Inc., 9191 Towne Centre Dr., Suite 220, San Diego, CA 92122, or call 619-587-2015 or 1-800-233-3411 (nationwide) or 1-800-542-6188 (in CA). Please remember to tell them that you heard about their inverter in Home Power. Seminars One of the problems with RETSIE is that everything is happening at once. Eventhough there were three of us (Karen, Brian, and I), we had to choose from a list of very interesting seminars, many of which were running at the same time. And in addition to the seminars, there is the action on the floor, where much of the business of the convention is conducted. RETSIE is a classic example of too much to do and too little time to do it in. We attended the Photovoltaics sessions to find out the latest developments in PVs. ARCO has developed a thin-film PV cell that is semi-transparent. ARCO is considering marketing this "see through" PV as a car sunroof and building glass. Image having your windows make electricity directly from the sun! The model I saw gave a bronze tint to the light that passed through it. A major advantage of thin-film PVs is that they are less expensive and easier to make, hence lower in cost. ARCO is also doing research into using copper indium diselenide (CIS) PV cells. The CIS junction, sandwiched with a cadmium/zinc sulfide layer, widens the spectral response of the resulting PV cell from the mid-visual range of light into the near-infrared region. The result is potentially much higher efficiencies and greater power output. ARCO is working on getting the CIS junction together with the transparent thin-film junction. Sort of a PV sandwich. When this is perfected, the result will be a two layer (tandem) PV cell with sunlight conversion efficiencies around 20%. The sunlight shines through the upper transparent PV layer making electricity, then the light strikes the lower CIS layer and makes still more electricity. Working, prototype, tandem PVs now offer efficiencies around 15.5%. Conventional silicon PVs are now about 13% to 14% efficient. A very interesting opinion came up during the Marketing portion of the PV seminars. Experts now consider that the home energy market will be the fastest expanding and largest market segment in the near future. This surprised us. At last year's RETSIE, all the experts told us that there was NO home market for PVs. Maybe these folks have been reading Home PowerÉ People The best part about RETSIE is not the seminars, speeches, and foo foo rah on the floor, but meeting folks. It's the people making the products you use who are really responsible for your lights at night. The renewable energy industry is blessed with a very wide cross section of excited and involved people. We met everyone from three-piece suit types to sandal & jeans types, everyone of them high on renewable energy and excited about its role in a future we can all live with. I've been reading Joel Davidson's writings on PV energy for years and it was a pleasure to finally meet this astute and farseeing person. I can strongly recommend his THE NEW SOLAR ELECTRIC HOME book (ISBN 0- 937948-09-8 and available from Aatec, a Mercantile advertiser in this issue). This book very effectively communicates Joel's many years of hands-on PV experience. Joel is now working as Western Regional Sales Manager with Heliopower, a PV manufacturer currently not in the home power market. Joel told us that Heliopower is considering marketing its PVs to US home power users. He is now involved in setting up a dealer network to assure home power customers the service they deserve. You can contact Joel Davidson at POB 5089, Culver City, CA 90231 or call 213-202-7882. Those of you wanting info about Heliopower's PVs, or wishing to encourage them to market their PVs, please contact Heliopower Inc., One Centennial Plaza 3F, Piscataway, NJ 08854 or call 1-800-34- HELIO. Don't forget to tell them you heard about it in Home Power! INSERT JOEL DAVIDSON PHOTOS We started Home Power magazine last November on nothing but hope. None of the crew here has ever published a magazine before. If we'd have realized how ignorant we were, I don't believe we'd have even started. Anyway, we're in it now and are learning as quickly as possible. While at this years RETSIE, we met Mark Fitzgerald. Mark publishes PV International Magazine (PVI), and has been doing this for six years. No small feat in the small magazine businessÉ PVI is the official magazine of the Photovoltaic Information and Education Association (PVEIA). PVI covers the cutting edge of PV technology in a more technical fashion than you will find in Home Power. If our PV articles leave you thirsting more more detailed technical data then contact, PVI Magazine, POB 4168, Highlands Ranch, CO 80126 or call 303-791-2322. Mark Fitzgerald was kind enough to spend several hours with us sharing his years of publishing experience in this field. We learned more about magazine publishing from him in an hour, than we had in months of trial and error. We, and all Home Power readers, are indebted to Mark for his generous help. Home Power will be a better, more efficient, publication because of Mark's assistance. Thanks, Mark! INSERT MARK FITZGERALD PHOTO The Home Power Crew were not the only "back woodsies" to go to the city to meet big time energy. We met Steve and Elizabeth Willey of Backwoods Solar Electric while they attended RETSIE. Steve and I exchanged info on running a home power company. Of particular notice is Steve and Elizabeth's mobile office. Running a renewable energy business in the boonies requires flexibility and adaptability. Steve's 4WD van is equipped with two ARCO PV modules to power the van's computer, numerous two- way radios, lights, and refrigerator. The Backwoods Solar Electric van is a mobile demonstration of solar power in action, and gets Steve to his customer's remote systems. INSERT STEVE WILLEY PHOTO The Scene RETSIE held no major breakthroughs this year, no 25¢ PVs or forever batteries. Instead we found an industry that is working overtime to make tomorrow's reality affordable for us today. Home Power extends its compliments and congratulations to renewable energy people for their efforts and useful products. Without their work, many of us would be sitting in the dark. It's easy to get tired of the big city. All the conveniences don't make up for no trees and animals around. Karen even got tired of the unlimited hot water in the hotel room's shower (eventually). Three days of city air is about our limit. It wuz fun, but it twern't home. Well, I'm not sure that the big city is the best place to display home style, renewable energy. At RETSIE we all gathered in a large, grid connected, air conditioned megastructure. We met many people from companies actively participating in the industry that couldn't afford a booth. We searched the floor, peering at each other's miniscule name tags and hoping to make contact. Maybe we home style energy folks need our own convention. One not encapsulated in air conditioned concrete, but outside under the trees where the wind blows. I can see PVs, batteries, inverters, and maybe a few computers setup in the country to aid our discussions and info exchange. I see more than professional industry types attending, I see everyone interested in home power. I see it being FREE to all. What do you think? Would you attend? Please communicate your ideas for a home power synergy with us. We are making plansÉ