In partnership with Panasonic, Northern California's Infineon Raceway is boosting its sustainability drive with a solar power system that now supplies 41 percent of the facility's electricity.
Completion of the installation is the latest development in the raceway's Accelerating Sustainable Performance program and will rival another component of the green campaign -- the sheep that crop the facility's grasslands -- as an attention-grabbing visual signature for Infineon's environmental efforts.
The 1,652 panels for the 353-kilowatt solar power system roost atop five sites at the 1,600-acre facility -- the main grandstand; the sound wall at Turn 10 of the twisting 2.5-mile track; the facility's main office; the Tech Center of the Jim Russell Racing Drivers School, (which includes modular structures by green building innovators Project FROG); and the Raceway Cafe.
The 3,000 sheep, which are supplied by Rocky Mountain Wooly Weeders, graze on slopes above the raceway. They've lived on the property since 2008, when the facility added "green mowing" and other eco-friendly measures to activities that included comprehensive recycling, an effort begun in 2004.
To site the solar arrays, facility operators chose the locations that were best for capturing the sun's rays and people's attention, said Steve Page, Infineon Raceway's president and general manager. "We consciously set about identifying the most visible places on the property," said Page in a news conference on Saturday to announce that the solar energy system is on line and delivering power.
The announcement by Page and Jim Doyle, president of Panasonic Enterprise Solutions Company, came on the weekend that NASCAR's Sprint Cup Series came to Infineon.
The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, like other major pro sports in North America, is working to ease the environmental impacts its operations and push a green message out to its 70 million fans.
At Infineon, a 43-year-old facility that hosts a variety motor sports events 340 days a year, Page acknowledged that the intersection of environmental concerns and the racing industry may be difficult for some people to fathom.
"The idea of a motor racing facility launching a sustainability initiative may seem a bit counter-intuitive to a lot of people and I want to make sure I articulate the spirit of what we are doing," Page said. "It's very important for us to demonstrate that are options in the sustainable world where you don't have to compromise performance.
"The point we're trying to make is whatever assumptions you might have about someone in our industry, we have a very strong belief in operating as a sustainable business. It's something we want to wear very prominently and set an example to the folks who come out and use this facility."
The efforts at Infineon are being watched by its fans as well as others in the sports industry, said Doyle. He conceded, though, that when he first heard about the green vision for the facility, his initial thought was "it's kind of ironic when you think of a racetrack."
"But then I looked out the window and saw 1,000 sheep mowing the lawn," Doyle said. "That's real. These guys really mean it here."
Panasonic, the sponsor of the raceway's technology center, also provided a two-sided LED video board for the facility. With a display board that's almost 6 feet high and 17½ feet wide, the sign is visible from a nearby highway. It's made up of 57,600 LEDs, draws its power from a solar tracker and uses half the energy of its predecessor, which contained about 7,000 traditional bulbs.
The raceway and Panasonic estimate that the solar installation, not including the new sign, will save 34,000 barrels of oil over a 30-year period.
2011年3月20日星期日
ENERGY: Electric car owners prone to going solar
Electric car buyers said they're purchasing solar panels to support their new, electricity-
intensive driving habits.
The first in the most recent wave of plug-in electric cars rolled out last year in San Diego
County, an all-electric vehicle from Nissan, followed a month later by Chevy's mostly
electric Volt.
While there's no hard data for Volt owners, 40 percent of Leaf owners have solar panels,
according to the California Center for Sustainable Energy, a San Diego nonprofit. Owners
reached by the North County Times said they decided on solar panels at the same time they
decided on electric cars, both to reduce their contributions to global warming and to offset
the extra electricity they'd have to buy for their new vehicles.
"We wanted to go electric because it's green and all that," said Rosa Enriquez, a teacher
with the Vista Unified School District. "But we went solar also because our electric bills
were so high ---- hundreds and hundreds of dollars."
For customers like Enriquez, the "going green" element comes from the reduction in
greenhouse-gas production that comes with emissions-free solar power, which then is used to
run an electric car, itself an improvement on gasoline-burners in terms of greenhouse impact.
"When a person goes solar and buys an electric car, they essentially have their own gas
station on their roof," said Daniel Sullivan, founder of Sullivan Solar Power in San Diego.
Many owners also said they'd come out ahead financially, thanks to the way California
utilities bill for power.
The price of electricity in California escalates as customers' consumption passes usage
plateaus. Owning an electric car not only adds to total usage, but it also puts more
customers into the most expensive tiers of electricity.
Using solar panels to generate electricity and pump it back into the grid allows customers to
reduce their usage, and to pay a lower rate for the power they use, lowering their bills.
San Diego Gas & Electric Co. would prefer car owners use an alternate billing system in which
the owners pay for power priced on when it's used. Electricity used in the middle of the day,
when it's most needed in offices and factories, costs the most, while power at night is the
cheapest, said SDG&E spokesman Art Larson.
Customers have the option of putting their whole house, including the solarpower generation,
into a time-of-use billing system. Their solar panels would produce power in the mid-
afternoon, when the sun is brightest and electricity the most expensive, and they would,
SDG&E hopes, charge their cars at night, when electricity is cheapest, Larson said.
SDG&E is working with another company called Ecotality Inc. to test three different pricing
schemes that make the daytime-nighttime contrast more or less extreme.
Electric car owners can also choose a hybrid scheme in which they install a second meter
specifically for time-of-use billing for their electric vehicles, while the house would
remain on the traditional tier system.
Installing a meter and charger can be expensive, as much as $3,500 total, plus another $1,000
for a charger, according to Mark Ferry, transportation program manager for the Center for
Sustainable Energy. In San Diego, a thousand customers are participating in a federally
funded program that pays all of those expenses.
"Ecotality only agreed to put in the second meter two or three months ago, and that was
because of solar customers," Ferry said.
SDG&E holds personal meetings with electric vehicle customers to help them figure out the
optimal program, but Ferry said not everyone chooses based on finances.
"Some people want to generate enough solar energy to cover 100 percent of their electric
needs, even if from an economic view that doesn’t make sense for them," he said.
Glen Rhoades, a retiree in Carlsbad, has his Volt, but construction won't start on his 4.5
kilowatt solar generator for two weeks. At the moment, he's still on a traditional tier
system, and his bill, which included expensive lighting for his fish aquariums, ratcheted up
to $550 last month.
But he upgraded his lighting system with more efficient bulbs, which he hopes will
dramatically lower his bill when combined with the solar system. Also, once he's had a chance
to talk to his solar installer, he hopes to switch to time-of-use pricing, to tap lower night
rates.
intensive driving habits.
The first in the most recent wave of plug-in electric cars rolled out last year in San Diego
County, an all-electric vehicle from Nissan, followed a month later by Chevy's mostly
electric Volt.
While there's no hard data for Volt owners, 40 percent of Leaf owners have solar panels,
according to the California Center for Sustainable Energy, a San Diego nonprofit. Owners
reached by the North County Times said they decided on solar panels at the same time they
decided on electric cars, both to reduce their contributions to global warming and to offset
the extra electricity they'd have to buy for their new vehicles.
"We wanted to go electric because it's green and all that," said Rosa Enriquez, a teacher
with the Vista Unified School District. "But we went solar also because our electric bills
were so high ---- hundreds and hundreds of dollars."
For customers like Enriquez, the "going green" element comes from the reduction in
greenhouse-gas production that comes with emissions-free solar power, which then is used to
run an electric car, itself an improvement on gasoline-burners in terms of greenhouse impact.
"When a person goes solar and buys an electric car, they essentially have their own gas
station on their roof," said Daniel Sullivan, founder of Sullivan Solar Power in San Diego.
Many owners also said they'd come out ahead financially, thanks to the way California
utilities bill for power.
The price of electricity in California escalates as customers' consumption passes usage
plateaus. Owning an electric car not only adds to total usage, but it also puts more
customers into the most expensive tiers of electricity.
Using solar panels to generate electricity and pump it back into the grid allows customers to
reduce their usage, and to pay a lower rate for the power they use, lowering their bills.
San Diego Gas & Electric Co. would prefer car owners use an alternate billing system in which
the owners pay for power priced on when it's used. Electricity used in the middle of the day,
when it's most needed in offices and factories, costs the most, while power at night is the
cheapest, said SDG&E spokesman Art Larson.
Customers have the option of putting their whole house, including the solarpower generation,
into a time-of-use billing system. Their solar panels would produce power in the mid-
afternoon, when the sun is brightest and electricity the most expensive, and they would,
SDG&E hopes, charge their cars at night, when electricity is cheapest, Larson said.
SDG&E is working with another company called Ecotality Inc. to test three different pricing
schemes that make the daytime-nighttime contrast more or less extreme.
Electric car owners can also choose a hybrid scheme in which they install a second meter
specifically for time-of-use billing for their electric vehicles, while the house would
remain on the traditional tier system.
Installing a meter and charger can be expensive, as much as $3,500 total, plus another $1,000
for a charger, according to Mark Ferry, transportation program manager for the Center for
Sustainable Energy. In San Diego, a thousand customers are participating in a federally
funded program that pays all of those expenses.
"Ecotality only agreed to put in the second meter two or three months ago, and that was
because of solar customers," Ferry said.
SDG&E holds personal meetings with electric vehicle customers to help them figure out the
optimal program, but Ferry said not everyone chooses based on finances.
"Some people want to generate enough solar energy to cover 100 percent of their electric
needs, even if from an economic view that doesn’t make sense for them," he said.
Glen Rhoades, a retiree in Carlsbad, has his Volt, but construction won't start on his 4.5
kilowatt solar generator for two weeks. At the moment, he's still on a traditional tier
system, and his bill, which included expensive lighting for his fish aquariums, ratcheted up
to $550 last month.
But he upgraded his lighting system with more efficient bulbs, which he hopes will
dramatically lower his bill when combined with the solar system. Also, once he's had a chance
to talk to his solar installer, he hopes to switch to time-of-use pricing, to tap lower night
rates.
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