With the Made in Minnesota solar thermal rebate still available, we spoke with Jason Edens, Director of the Rural Renewable Energy Alliance (RREAL), to learn about an eligible technology, SolarWall.
While other solar thermal technologies are still available in Minnesota, SolarWall is the only one that is actively being manufactured. All others are simply drawing down existing inventory.
Can you tell me a little about SolarWall?
Jason Edens: SolarWall is a solar thermal technology designed to pre-heat ventilation make-up air in commercial, industrial and agricultural applications.
Ventilation make-up air? What’s that?
Jason Edens: Our buildings must breathe or exchange air at a certain rate to maintain indoor air quality and therefore health. Buildings essentially breathe to ensure a healthy interior environment.
By code and regulation (e.g. ASHRAE 62.2), buildings are required to have a certain rate of air exchange where stale air has to be expelled and fresh air is brought in to maintain air quality. In cold climates, the process of exchanging the air increases the overall heating load of the building significantly. Because the fresh air is often quite cold relative, it takes significant resources to bring that air up to the necessary temperature in the building.
Rather than simply bring the air in at ambient temperature, which can be quite cold in Minnesota, SolarWall is designed to pre-heat that air before it enters the building to reduce heating costs, recapture building heat loss and reduce the overall energy burden of the building. SolarWall is a low cost, architecturally integrated solar thermal solution that directly addresses a huge need across the commercial-industrial sector. SolarWall is a proven but underutilized and appropriate technology that can be deployed across the Minnesota landscape.
This is eligible for the Made in Minnesota rebate, correct?
Jason Edens: Yes, SolarWall is a Made in Minnesota technology. In partnership with the Rural Renewable Energy Alliance, SolarWall qualifies for the forward thinking Made in Minnesota solar thermal rebate program. SolarWall projects can earn up to $25,000 in cash rebates through the State of Minnesota solar thermal rebate system. This rebate helps projects pay for themselves even more quickly, especially when businesses can harvest additional tax benefits.
What are the some of the best building types that would be a good fit for the SolarWall technology?
Jason Edens: SolarWall is primarily a commercial-industrial technology. It is highly appropriate for a panoply of building types including schools, hospitals, manufacturing buildings, apartment complexes, office buildings, warehouses, livestock buildings, plane hangars and more. If buildings have a ventilation make-up load and a decent solar site, SolarWall is probably a suitable technology to reduce the cost of ventilation make-up loads. SolarWall has several iterations of its product for different building types and applications, so it is broadly applicable. SolarWall has been deployed from Olympic village complexes to big box stores; from the U.S. military installations to elementary schools.
Do you have some projects here in Minnesota you would like to highlight?
Jason Edens: Minnesota is ripe for SolarWall development. Systems can be found throughout the state on office buildings and police precinct buildings. One particularly exciting application in the State of Minnesota is on a turkey barn in northwest Minnesota. Minnesota is the nation’s leading producer of turkeys, and turkeys require significant amounts of heat and fresh air, making the buildings an ideal application for the technology. Furthermore, most turkey operations in wide open spaces and far from the natural gas grid which means that they are in good sunny spots and dependent on delivered fuels, respectively.
Using propane to heat turkey barns is an expensive proposition, so using SolarWall to do a portion of the heating offers significant savings especially when agricultural producers can harvest the tax incentives and accelerated depreciation benefits! It’s a solid investment for the sector, period.
The installed system in northwest Minnesota will save the producers tens of thousands of dollars over its service life and offers an extremely rapid return on investment. In the turkey industry alone, hundreds and hundreds of similar buildings could harvest similar savings.
If someone is interested in learning more, who should they contact?
Jason Edens: The Rural Renewable Energy Alliance would be delighted to tell communities more about the benefits of solar thermal and SolarWall in particular. Folks can reach out to Jason Edens at jason@rreal.org or Jan Hubbard at jan@rreal.org.
