Kady Ferguson with kids from Flatbush Reformed Church summer camp. Photo by Jocelyn Cohen.

I had such a blast with these kids from the Flatbush Reformed Church Summer camp today. They already knew what I always say: we use renewable energy because it’s clean, it doesn’t cause carbon emissions, it improves air quality and it puts the brakes on global warming.  It’s also good for keeping energy costs down in the long run.

We used the SunBike at the Church Avenue Communal Garden to shred leaves for the compost pile. As master composters Anne Pope and Kady Ferguson explained, the compost needs “browns” like leaves along with food scraps.  Shredding them makes the compost decompose more quickly, so why not let renewable energy do all the work (well, most of it)?

Then each kid took the SunBike on a little jaunt around the church yard–just to show they’re not just smart.  They’re strong enough to haul more than 200 lbs of equipment wherever it needs to go to follow the sun.

You’ll see the voltage and amp meters in the video. Multiply them together for watts. Hey, that’s a 1000 watts. Good job, SunBike, and great job, kids!

Electrical integration advisor Gregory Rodlico helping me build the SunBike.

Imagining the SunBike at Park(ing) Day. Rendering by Keka Marzagao

After much preparation, the Sustainable Flatbush SunBike will make its debut at the Cortelyou Road Greenmarket on Sunday, June 26!  Stop by for a taste of sun-powered freshly-squeezed apple juice and find out how to use clean energy right now!

Sustainable Flatbush is proud to announce a partnership with Con Edison to build the SunBike, a mobile solar electric system that gets around in a retrofitted cargo bike.  The SunBike will be able to provide enough energy to power a small sound system and lighting for up to two hours without access to sunlight, and do so much more.

Making Clean Energy A Reality

I’ve dreamed about creating a mobile solar electric system since I started advocating for clean energy at New York City Public Schools five years ago.  With all those beautiful, unshaded flat roofs soaking up the sun’s rays, schools seemed the perfect place to show communities the benefits of clean energy and prepare our students for the green economy at the same time.  But when I discovered that New York City public schools aren’t eligible for New York State’s renewable energy incentives, I resolved that solar would have to get some wheels to reach our city’s 1200 school buildings and over one million students.  And now, with support from ConEd, Sustainable Flatbush can solar-empower school kids, community residents and local businesses alike.

A Vital Learning Tool

The SunBike (which we used to call the PowerBike) will become the centerpiece of the Sustainable Flatbush Solar Team, a group of local youth who will learn about solar power by studying the SunBike and analyzing all power and energy data collected while the SunBike is in action.  The Solar Team gets in-depth knowledge and leadership skills as they share what they’ve learned with the public when they take the SunBike to the streets.  They will help community residents charge their cell phones, laptops and mp3 players, provide power for events, and anything else they can imagine.  The SunBike will show that renewable energy is not a dream but a reality right now.

The SunBike and You

The SunBike will be a visible presence on the streets of Flatbush starting next summer, at schools, street fairs, on sidewalks at “charging events” under the sponsorship of local businesses, and beyond.  So if you’re walking down the street and you hear a little jingle, it just might be the SunBike coming your way, offering you clean and free power to fuel your day, and showing the way to our clean energy future.

Thanks to ConEd for their generous support of this project!

Watch Sustainable Flatbush‘s entry in NYSERDA’s Shining Example Video Contest to find out.

And by the way, switching to CFLs isn’t just a brilliant idea for your budget.  It’s great for the environment, too.

Brooklyn Apartment Building (photo by Keka Marzagão)

“None, because you already changed your incandescent  bulbs to CFLs and they last forever.”

Well, maybe not forever, but the long-time advocate for clean energy and the environment made his point.  At our Energy Forum on March 20 at the Brooklyn College Student Center, we learned that to meet our ambitious local, state, and federal energy efficiency goals, we’re going to have to do a lot more than change our light bulbs.

More than 70 people gathered to find out how to make major energy efficiency and renewable energy upgrades on the large and small homes of Flatbush.  Our Executive Director Anne Pope fulfilled her promise to share what she learned on her quest to reduce her coop building’s energy use, save money for its residents, and reduce the carbon emissions that damage our health and contribute to global warming.

Multi-Family Buildings

Most of us have had to open a window in an overheated apartment in the middle of winter, and we recognize that, as Anne noted at our panel on multi-family buildings, we might as well be throwing money out the window.  Here in New York City, large multi-family buildings present one of our biggest challenges.  We can’t build new state-of-the-art buildings in our dense neighborhoods; we have to work with what we have.
Because of our density, New York City uses less energy per resident than other cities, but as panelist Andy Padian pointed out, the average NYC apartment uses 3 to 5 times the energy per square foot per heating degree day as a dwelling in Iowa.

Neighborhood Energy Forum (photos by Keka Marzagão)

Padian, Vice President for Energy Initiatives at the Community Preservation Corporation and this year’s recipient of the Distinguished Service Award from the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association, also provided the title of this post.  His presentation included a photo of the roofs of Manhattan’s Stuyvesant Town housing complex–where 500 vents leak a lot of heat–to make the point that building managers need to know how to find and seal holes.  Padian made other recommendations, too, such as turning off or dimming common area lighting, cutting way back on water use (40% of the heat in our buildings is used for hot water), and fixing those leaks.  One leaky toilet can cost up to $12,000 per year!

Panelist Jonathan Flothow of The Steam Balancing Company advised a “balanced” approach to heating in our large residential buildings.  Before replacing a boiler, make sure the pipes and radiators are properly maintained, sized, and vented.  Simply replacing a boiler won’t save you much energy or money.  If you do replace a boiler, make sure it’s the right size.  Most boilers are wasteful because they’re too big.

Lucas Falk of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, and National Grid’s Paolo Morisi touched on incentives offered by the State and utility.

1-4 Family Homes

It’s an ideal time for energy efficiency upgrades and renewable energy projects on our 1-4 family homes, according to panelists Louis Rizzo of National Grid and  Ellen Honigstock, an architect, LEED-AP, and certified building auditor.  With a range of tax credits and government and utility incentive programs, you can get funding for new windows, energy efficient appliances, solar-electric installations, and much more.  Then you can start saving money on your energy bills and make back your investment in a few years.

Ellen’s presentation gives all the details, with numbers from sample projects, but your investment and payback may be different. Download the presentation here.

“Sustainability Starts with Us”

Those were words that Lucas Falk left us with on March 20, and it’s a mandate we take to heart.  It’s our goal at Sustainable Flatbush to increase the energy efficiency of our neighborhood.  Stay tuned for your in-depth guide to all the resources we gathered at the Neighborhood Energy Forum to assist you on your path to energy efficiency and affordability.

Thanks to Lois Sturm for her contribution to this post.

Brooklyn Independent Television really captured the spirit of the day.

About a year ago, Sustainable Flatbush’s Executive Director Anne Pope and I sat at Sycamore Bar and Flower Shop on Cortelyou Road.

I had just become the Director of Energy Solutions at SF, and we were strategizing about the best ways to meet the urgent need for energy efficiency upgrades in our neighborhood, to bring down soaring energy costs and reduce our carbon emissions.  With new incentive programs from government and utilities, Anne and I realized the time was right to leverage funds that would bring major energy efficiency and renewable energy projects to Flatbush.

So we conceived the Neighborhood Energy Forum.  For the past year, SF’s Energy Solutions Initiative has been working diligently to bring the Neighborhood Energy Forum to fruition.  We’ve been fortunate to join forces with a fantastic group of sponsors and partners, the Flatbush Development Corporation, the Energy Smart Communities program of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), ConEd,  and National Grid.

Join us on March 20 at the Brooklyn College Student Center, from 9:30 to 2:00.
Admission is free!  Here’s what it’s about:

Multi-Family and 1-4 Family Tracks

We understand that large buildings face different challenges than smaller homes, so depending on the size of your residence, we have information tailored to your needs.  Representatives from NYSERDA, National Grid, and ConEd will highlight low- and middle-income incentive programs to help building owners, co-op boards, tenant groups and other stakeholders understand what needs to be done and how to take the first steps.

Meet Contractors Who Can Do the Work at Our Energy Fair

Energy auditors, building engineers, renewable energy installers—basically anyone you need to talk to—will be on hand offering their services.  You will gain important knowledge about how to move forward by talking to the experts, and may even find someone to work with on your project.

A Perfect Storm for Renewables in NYC

With federal, state, and local tax credits and abatements, plus a solar-electric (photovoltaic, or PV) incentive rebate program, 2010 is the year for solar–not just PV but solar heat and hot water too.  So if you’re one of those people who have asked us, “How can I get solar for my home,” come to the Neighborhood Energy Forum and catch up with renewable energy vendors at the Energy Fair.

Check-in with Your Elected Officials

Members of the New York State Assembly and Senate as well as New York City Council will be on hand to let you know what they’re doing to support energy efficiency and renewables in our city.  See the Neighborhood Energy Forum page to get the story on who will be there.

To find out more, visit our Energy Forum page, or jump right to our registration form.  Send me an email if you have any questions.  See you there!

Relevant Links:

• Neighborhood Energy Forum Registration
• Neighborhood Energy Forum
• Ellen Honigstock at our Neighborhood Energy Forum
• What National Grid Can Do For You
• Neighborhood Energy Forum on March 20th

If the designers of our telegraph and telephone system traveled more than hundred years into our time, they could not begin to imagine how our “smart phones” put the world into our hands.  But our electrical grid has pretty much remained the same since its inception in the late 1800s.  And it’s time to make a change.

Bob Catell, a speaker at yesterday’s forum “Smart Grid for Smart Cities” at NYU’s Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, used that jarring comparison to bring home a point that everyone in the energy industry understands.  With electricity costs and demand growing out of control, the urgent need to reduce our emissions in a carbon-constrained world, and a growing mandate to use more renewable resources, our electrical grid needs a revolution like the one that has transformed the way we communicate.  With a Smart Grid, we can meet our energy efficiency goals, stem the tide of global warming, and make energy affordable.

The Smart Grid Controls Costs

New York City residents pay more than almost anyone else in the country for electricity.  With demand projected to rise a couple of percentage points a year in the foreseeable future, New York City energy planners say costs could go up 20% over the next 5 years. The Smart Grid brings detailed information about how much energy we’re using and how much it’s costing us right into our kitchens and living rooms, and runs on “auto-pilot” to limit our consumption they way we tell it to. Controlling our consumption is the key to keeping costs down in the future.

In the Smart Grid, functions are automated system-wide also, to level out the hills and valleys of our city’s daily and seasonal demand.  That’s good news, because right now the system has to have enough capacity to meet our electrical needs at times of peak demand–afternoons in the middle of summer when everyone is cranking the AC, or winter evenings when we get home from work and turn on the lights.  The rest of the time we have excess capacity that doesn’t get used.  The Smart Grid promises to optimize what we have so we don’t have to keep building more power plants just to meet our growing peak demand.

Making Renewables a Reality

Finally, we won’t be able to realize the full potential of renewable energy without the Smart Grid.  While the current system can handle some integration of small solar and wind installations, electricity is really meant to travel from large power plants in one direction to electrical consumers.  In the 21st century, we need “distributed generation,” for electricity to travel in all directions from large and small generators to wherever it’s needed.  And for that we need the automated system controls of the Smart Grid.

While there are a number of pilot projects right now, we won’t see full implementation of the Smart Grid for about twenty years.  Getting us there is the job of New York State’s Smart Grid Consortium of utilities, corporations, governments, academic instutions and non-profits.  It’s an expensive proposition, and we’ll all have to share the cost burden in the short-term.

But as the head of the Smart Grid Consortium Bob Catell said at yesterday’s forum, “The question isn’t, how much is this going to cost if we do it, but how much will it cost if we don’t?”

Here’s another great project from Sustainable Flatbush, a photovoltaic (solar-electric) system to provide night lighting for Vox Pop Cafe, on the corner of Cortelyou and Stratford.

The lamp, a replica of the Statue of Liberty and the second of its kind for the popular Flatbush gathering place, has a tumultuous history.  The original lamp was stolen from the front of the cafe earlier this summer.  On July 4, in a troubling turn of events, the thieves posted a video of an extremist-style “beheading” of the statue on YouTube.  A few weeks later, after the mobilization of many neighbors, a Manhattan restauranteur generously donated the second statue.  Here’s an article about Lady Liberty’s triumphant return home.

Vox Pop approached Sustainable Flatbush (SF) to turn the tragic incident into an opportunity to teach our community about the value of clean energy.  As the director of SF’s Energy Solutions Initiative, and general techtopia geek who likes to make things, I designed the system to keep the flame burning through the night even in the middle of winter.  In summer, there’ll be extra energy for cafe patrons to charge their laptops and keep their music pumping.  Local kids will help build, maintain and teach about the system. We’ll be building it early next year.

So without further adeiu, I present to you the People’s Voice Solar Array!