Not totally sure what the implications are, but this sticker caught my eye today.
I saw it in a bathroom and it says “This sticker will save up to 100lbs. of paper every year.” It also includes a link to the project’s website, TheseComeFromTrees.com. Just thought it was an interesting, albeit analog, example of communicating consumption to consumers. Maybe something to think about with smart grid/GE energy.
Hrm, this is super interesting. Apparently there is a company called 3TIER that has a bunch of products to help people who are considering renewable energy products figure out the feasability. (The feasability studies at the beginning of any renewable project is apparently one of the more time and money consuming parts of the project. Part of the reason why EOS exists.)
Here’s how they describe one of their products, Firstlook (pictured above), on their site: “FirstLook Prospecting for wind is the first and only online tool that allows you to evaluate a potential site quickly and for a fraction of the cost of traditional methods.” You can even play around with it a bit here.
No idea if it actually works, but clearly there will be lots more entrepreneurs playing in this space in the future. I wonder whether we can’t find some good way for GE to support/promote folks like this. Seems to me like the more smooth and easy it is for people to get their renewable projects off the ground, the better it is for all of us (even if GE doesn’t normally sell single turbines).
Oh, and here’s the Forbes video interview with the CEO of 3TIER:
This was going to be a post about the economics of wind (which I will get to and add a link once I post), but I decided to first tell the story of how Jiminy Peak got their wind turbine. First, it’s important to understand that there aren’t a lot of other single wind turbines around, most of them are part of large wind farms. Jiminy Peak actually has “the only privately owned megawatt class turbine in the nation for on-site energy usage,” according to the EOS Ventures website. Basically, after going through the process of surveying and procuring the turbine the team at Jiminy learned a ton and decided to start a company to help others get their renewable energy projects off the ground.
Here are the steps they went through (which come from full case study outlining the process at the EOS site).
Then, once they finished all that and realized it was a viable option they went to talk to GE. Because GE doesn’t sell a 1 megawatt turbine (the smallest is a 1.5 mw) Jiminy had to go back to the drawing board and do a few more studies to make sure the larger turbine wouldn’t be an issue. This second round looked like this:
Finally after everything was cleared they installed it (a whole other ordeal, since it’s not every day you need to get a structure of that size to the top of a ski mountain). The total cost $3.9 million and it’s predicted to take 8 years to pay back (all according to EOS of course).
Clearly not a very easy process, which is exactly why the team at Jiminy started EOS. Very interesting.