A guide to choosing a solar water pump for remote, off-grid, applications has been published by Agricultural Research Service scientists.

For this guide, agricultural engineer Brian Vick and colleagues drew on the ARS Conservation and Production Research Laboratory’s 31 years of testing stand-alone water pumps. The laboratory is located near Bushland, Texas.

Vick found that for pumps with motors rated less than 1,500 watts, solar is usually the best choice. With current technology and costs, wind power or a hybrid wind/solar pump is usually best for power needs of 1,500 watts or more.

Vick and colleagues tested three major pump types: diaphragm, helical and centrifugal. Diaphragm and helical pumps can maintain almost the same maximum flow rate over a large range of pumping depths. Because maximum flow rate increases with increasing power, centrifugal pumps can pump more water than diaphragm or helical pumps, although a photovoltaic (PV) array rated at a higher power may be required, especially at deeper pumping depths.

Powered with a 160-watt PV array, most diaphragm pumps sold today can draw sufficient water from wells 100 feet deep or less to supply 75 head of cattle. Some recently designed diaphragm pumps can draw from as deep as 230 feet, but can only supply sufficient quantities of water for 30 head of cattle.

ARS research indicates that if more water is needed or a deeper well is required, a pump type other than a diaphragm--and a PV array of more than 160 watts--is recommended.

The researchers also recommend using a controller on all pumps. For irrigation, they recommend the centrifugal pump with a hybrid wind/solar power system.

Their guide offers case studies in the Bushland area, where wells are more than 230 feet deep. One example is a four-person household, for which they recommend a helical pump powered by a 500-watt PV array. To supply water to 150 head of beef cattle, they would use a helical pump powered by a 640 watt PV array.

The guide, published by the American Solar Energy Society in 2009, is available online.

Indianapolis — Lt. Governor Becky Skillman announced 46 Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grants have been awarded to 37 Indiana cities, towns and counties for energy efficiency upgrades to public facilities.

A total of $3.35 million was awarded for upgrades including LED traffic light conversion, building lighting upgrades and non-lighting building retrofits. The communities were selected for the grants through a competitive bid process.

“These communities have stepped up and are leading by example by making sure public buildings and facilities are not wasting taxpayer dollars through inefficiency,” said Lt. Governor Becky Skillman. “Grants such as these help Hoosier counties, cities and towns to be good stewards of public facilities by reducing energy consumption.”

The program is funded through the U.S. Department of Energy and administered in Indiana by the Indiana Office of Energy Development. Cities and towns with fewer than 35,000 in population, and counties with populations of 200,000 or fewer were eligible to apply.

Details can be found here.

Indianapolis — With 9.9 percent of Indiana residents unemployed, the solution for long-term job growth may lie in the state's booming clean energy industry.

A Pew Charitable Trusts national economic study showed that green jobs grew nearly two and a half times faster than overall job creation between 1998 and 2007. During that time, clean energy jobs in Indiana grew by 17.9 percent.

Today, Indiana is home to more than 1,200 clean energy companies, which employ more than 17,000 people across the state.

Creating new jobs and helping Indiana businesses expand into the clean energy marketplace will be the topic of a Monday night forum in Indianapolis that will include several prominent local and national business, utility, and clean energy leaders.

Sponsored by the Apollo Alliance, the National Wildlife Federation and the Richard G. Luger Center for Renewable Energy, the roundtable will focus on how Indiana can lead the way in the new economy, and how investing in clean energy technologies and manufacturing is the key to creating millions of good-paying jobs across the country.

WHAT: Shared Prosperity: How Clean Energy Means Good Jobs for Indiana

WHEN: 7 p.m, Monday, Feb. 22, 2010.

WHERE: Basile Theater, Indiana History Center, 450 W. Ohio St., Indianapolis.

WHO:

• Jerome Ringo, President, Apollo Alliance
• Larry Schweiger, President and CEO, National Wildlife Federation
• Jeffery Metcalf, Regional Director, Ameresco
• John Stowell, Vice President, Environmental Health Policy for Duke Energy
• Noel Davis, President and Founder, Vela Gear Systems
• Ethan Rogers, Manager, Energy Efficiency Services, Purdue University

The Apollo Alliance is a coalition of unlikely and diverse interests including labor, business, environmental, and community leaders ˆ advancing a bold vision for the next American economy centered on clean energy and good
jobs.

The National Wildlife Federation is America's largest conservation organization. We work with more than 4 million members, partners and supporters in communities across the country to protect and restore wildlife habitat, confront global warming, and connect with nature.

Indianapolis — For the second year in a row, Indiana has ranked at or near the top of a national survey tracking the installation of large scale wind developments in the United States in 2009. In the last two years, Indiana has gone from 50th to 13th among wind-producing states.

Indiana installed 905 megawatts of wind power in 2009, according to the American Wind Energy Association. That puts Indiana second only to Texas for the year. In 2008, Indiana was singled out by AWEA as having the fastest wind power growth in the U.S.

The 2009 AWEA Year End Market report shows a total of some 10,000 megawatts, or MW, of wind power was installed during the year, bringing the total amount of wind power in the United States to 35,000 megawatts. Indiana’s 905 MW increase was second to Texas, where nearly 2,300 MW became operational.

Indiana has five privately developed wind farms in operation generating more than 1,000 MW of wind power. A sixth facility is under construction, and a number of other wind farms are proposed. It is projected that there could be approximately 3,000 MW of wind power in operation in Indiana by 2013. 1 MW of electricity is enough to power 300-500 Hoosier homes. In addition to the farms themselves, 11 Hoosier companies manufacture wind turbine components. These companies employ 1,000 Hoosier workers. That number is expected to jump by at least 500 in 2010.

West Lafayette, Ind. — Indiana electricity rates are projected to increase 12 percent over the next four years, while the recession and more efficient appliances will lower overall demand, according to a report prepared by analysts at Purdue University.

Major factors driving up rates will be new federal air-quality standards, coupled with increasing construction and fuel costs, said Douglas Gotham, director of the State Utility Forecasting Group, a state-funded panel of researchers based at Purdue.

The report, entitled "Indiana Electricity Projections: The 2009 Forecast," contains projections of the state's energy needs between 2008 and 2027 and was prepared for the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission (IURC). Analysts presented the report's findings to the state utility commission on Dec. 29.

The forecast was prepared by Gotham; Paul Preckel, a Purdue professor of agricultural economics; and analysts Forrest Holland, Marco Velastegui and David Nderitu.

Driving up rates are more stringent environmental guidelines that will hit Indiana harder than some states because of its heavy use of coal, Gotham said.

More than 90 percent of the electricity generated in the state is from coal-fired power plants. As of 2007, Indiana ranked fourth in the United States in the amount of nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide emitted annually.

Clean-air standards from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency require Indiana utilities to increase the amount of equipment for reducing sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides emissions from coal-burning power plants.

"Utilities have added pollution-control equipment, which turned out to be much more expensive than previous estimates, largely because of an increase in construction costs," Gotham said.

Among the report's findings is the prediction that by 2013 electricity rates will increase by 12 percent overall, with residential rates rising 14 percent, commercial 13 percent and industrial 11 percent. Rates are projected to rise slightly over the rest of the 20-year period, increasing a total of 15 percent by 2027, Gotham said.

Meanwhile, the recession and other factors have profoundly affected demand.

"Electricity consumption dropped 2.4 percent over the last two years, which is very unusual," Gotham said. "Demand is predicted to rise only 1.55 percent each year over the next 20 years. This is much lower than the 2 to 3 percent annual growth in demand we've seen since the end of the 1980s recession."

The panel used a system of sophisticated mathematical models to predict future trends for residential, commercial and industrial power users in the state. Projections of electricity demand are based on the estimated impact of manufacturing output and employment, commercial employment, population, energy prices, and other factors.

"One factor reducing demand is a renewed interest in energy efficiency," Gotham said.

Incandescent light bulbs are expected to be phased out, and more efficient appliances also will restrain demand.

Consumption is projected to grow 36 percent by 2027, from this year's 110,000 gigawatt hours to nearly 150,000 gigawatt hours. A gigawatt is 1 billion watts. One gigawatt hour is the constant use of one gigawatt for an hour, or enough energy to serve the annual needs of about 90 average-sized Indiana homes.

The projections are done on a statewide basis. Some utilities would be expected to experience lower growth than others based on the economic and geographic factors that they face. Similarly, price increases will vary among utilities, Gotham said.

The report looked at three categories of electricity provided to users:

• baseload power, which is produced by plants that generate electricity throughout the day;
• peaking power, which is produced by plants providing electricity only during times of heaviest demand, such as the hottest periods on summer days;
• and cycling power, which is produced by plants providing power for uses that are between peaking and baseload demand.

In the forecast two years ago, analysts projected a need for 3,220 megawatts of additional resources by 2012, of which 1,290 megawatts were baseload, 600 megawatts were peaking and 1,330 megawatts were cycling. In contrast, the new report projects a need for 540 megawatts of baseload resources by 2015, 480 of peaking and 300 of cycling.

"The reduction in new resource requirements is due to a combination of lower demand growth projections in the new report and new generating resources that Indiana utilities have acquired or have started construction on since the previous report was prepared," Gotham said.

The Purdue-based group prepares the reports about every two years to predict Indiana's future electricity requirements and the need for new generating capacity.

A copy of the report is available on the State Utility Forecasting Group's Web site. 

The forecasting group does not make recommendations. The studies are done in accordance with a state law enacted in 1985 to provide the state regulatory commission with an impartial projection of electricity consumption and peak demand. That information is used to determine whether the need exists for additional power plants. This is the 12th full report compiled by the group.

The forecasting group is housed within Purdue's Energy Center, which is part of the university's Discovery Park.