Like organic produce and hydrogen fuel cells, environmentalists come in all shapes and sizes. These four green advocates work in different ways but they share a single goal: taking care of the planet.
|
Bob Stonerock stands in a neighbor’s yard to show off his solar ‘Tower of Power’
|
Power Ranger
Bob Stonerock lives off the grid, running his manse with solar energy.
Renewable energy advocate Dr. Bob Stonerock lives in a home that would appear to have a Sasquatch-sized carbon footprint, and he makes no apologies for living large, either. He has a stack of monthly electric company statements and a notepad full of daily meter readings to prove he’s a good soldier in the fight against global warming.
To wit: he hasn’t paid an electric bill since last September, when the Orlando Utilities Commission charged him $69 to cool and power the 6,900-square-foot Lancaster Park home he shares with his wife, Marty. On a sunny, cool day in early March, Stonerock proudly points to an electric meter alongside the garage. Its digital display flashes an arrow pointing backward, meaning that at this very moment more power is going out from his home than is coming into it. OUC actually owed him $630 at the end of February, for electricity his “Tower of Power” solar energy system provided.
The “tower” is a 33-by-33-foot square panel of photovoltaic modules, rising at an angle from 11 feet to 24 feet off the ground. It faces south, absorbing sunlight as the sun crosses the sky.
In 1996, Stonerock became the first resident in the city proper to harness solar energy as electricity for home use, installing a rooftop system that provided an eighth of his home’s electrical demand of about 2,400 kilowatt hours per month on average. (The average residential consumer in Florida uses about half that, according to the Florida Energy Office.) In early 2002, he doubled the number of photovoltaic panels on his roof, increasing the solar-energy output to meet a quarter of his home’s electrical demand. Finally, last year, he went all out and had the tower built, increasing his solar energy output to 20.8 kilowatts, four times the performance of most residential solar power systems in Florida. Jennifer Szaro, OUC’s renewable energy projects engineer, says Stonerock’s power system produces 83 kilowatts on sunny days. On cloudy days and at night, the Stonerock home taps into the electric grid and draws on the surplus energy the solar panels sent into it earlier.
“I’ve been a renewable energy aficionado for decades,” says Stonerock, 61, a semi-retired nephrologist who has lived in Orlando’s “Pill Hill” neighborhood for 45 years. “I was just intrigued by the alchemy of solar energy.”
So intrigued that he spent about $170,000, more than three times the going rate, on his solar power system. It’s an elaborate layout of photovoltaic (PV) modules, encased wiring and power-inverter boxes that constantly hum with the sound of clean energy.
To be sure, it’s the Hummer of PV power, possibly the biggest residential solar power system in the Sunshine State. (The state doesn’t record the size of residential PV systems beyond 5 kilowatts per hour, at which point they qualify for the maximum $20,000 rebate.)
Bob Reedy of UCF’s Solar Energy Center predicts that by 2012 “every home [in Florida] will be built covered with PV” because the production of photovoltaic cells has increased exponentially, creating demand and driving down prices. He points to PV manufacturer Advanced Solar Photonics’ recent opening of a plant in Lake Mary as evidence of a growing movement toward solar energy.
Stonerock has no complaints about paying a premium for being a solar-energy pioneer in Orlando. He says he wanted to show people that alternative and clean sources for energy will work.
“This is a demonstration of my concern about the global climate change and sea-level rising,” he says of his solar-powered home. “I try to live by example.” —Mike Boslet
SOURCE: http://orlandomagazine.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6479
|
