Page 22 - CooperatorNews Chicagoland EXPO 2021

22 COOPERATORNEWS CHICAGOLAND —EXPO 2021 CHICAGO.COOPERATORNEWS.COM The support you need to manage your associations. Hugh Rider ph: (773) 989-8000 hrider@realtymortgageco.com REALTYMORTGAGECO.COM Call Us Today. Chicago’s Trusted Customized Property Management Program. Since 1906 Time for a new Time for a new CBU? CBU? Mailbox Installations and Repairs Mailbox Installations and Repairs Mailbox Fast LLC Mailbox Fast LLC www.MailboxFast.com www.MailboxFast.com Wheaton, IL Wheaton, IL 630-215-7343 630-215-7343 Before Before Make Your Life Easier with Make Your Life Easier with According to Mierlo, the material of a solar panel acts as a semiconductor, which processes electricity in a way that wastes a certain percentage of energy. The best a solar panel can do, he says, is to harness 24% of available energy from the sun, and today’s panels are approaching that limit. But new technologies promise a higher energy harvest. His company is develop- ing a tandem module, which has the abil- ity to increase the energy output of a solar panel by 35%. Using two semiconductors, tandem panels can capture energy from both low- and high-wavelength photons. When they become commercially avail- able in the near future, it is expected that tandems will reduce the kilowatt-hour cost of a solar panel to 2¢. An additional technological advance- ment is the actual material being used to make solar panels. The traditional poly- silicon is already fairly thin and versa- tile, but a new mate- rial called perovskite is on its way to com- mercial use. Thinner and more transpar- ent than crystalline silicon, perovskite has the potential to be layered on top of existing solar panels to boost efficiency, or be integrated with glass to make building windows that also generate power. Mierlo’s 1366 Technolo- gies has announced a merger with Hunt Perovskite Technologies LLC, according to Bloomberg, which will combine the two technologies to create an even more effi- cient solar panel. There is an uptake component that can potentially reduce costs even fur- ther—and that, says Mierlo, is the biggest challenge. It’s a major transition, in both physical components of a building or community and mental adjustments to a new way of accessing utilities. In the big- ger picture, there has to be a political will to shift resources and infrastructure away from the entrenched fossil fuel industry and into a cleaner, greener energy econo- my. “But the solutions are there,” accord- ing to Mierlo. “We just have to decide that we want to do it.” If You Build It ... So the technology exists and it’s cost- effective … but what can a multifamily building or community do if it doesn’t have a solar farm or available roof space to house solar panels? That’s where com- panies like Green Stream Holdings Inc. come in. The tech, finance, and solar utility firm recently announced that it is partnering with governmental agencies to facilitate community solar programs, which use one property’s solar array to offset the utility bills of ten or more “sub- scribers” that connect to it virtually. The company has offices in New York and is licensed there as well as in Nevada, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, among other states. Through its subsidiary, Green Rain Solar, LLC, based in Nevada, the compa- ny is offering this arrangement not only to individual buildings, but also to indi- vidual households. In New York State, it has partnered with Community Solar—a shared solar program that offers all util- ity customers the opportunity to switch to solar at no cost, with nothing on their roof or property, and receive immediate savings on their electric bill. CEO James DiPrima says explains the technology: “A solar farm is built on a ‘Host Site’ roof- top or ground mount, a remote location within a Utility Zone; the system is tied directly to the utility grid, bypassing any on-site meters. All of the power produced by the system can then be credited to any individual utility customer, at zero cos t—in s t a nt savings, and the savings will be credited to the individual cus- tomer’s bill for 20-plus years.” Another new technology tak- ing hold in Europe and the Middle East is smart glass, also known as electro- chromic glass or dynamic glass. Using a tiny burst of electricity to charge ions on a window layer, smart glass can change the amount of light it reflects. This goes beyond the low-emittance windows that block some of the sun’s radiation—an ex- isting technology already in use in some multifamily buildings in the U.S. Rather, smart glass allows users to choose how much light they want to block. And, as the name suggests, smart window con- trols can be linked to a building’s man- agement system, allowing for remote and automatic tint adjustment depending on time of day, year, weather, etc. This con- venience and aesthetic enhancement can save a building or community in both HVAC costs and carbon emissions, as the U.S. Department of Energy estimates that energy lost through conventional win- dows accounts for approximately 30% of heating and cooling energy. Decisions, Decisions With all of these options, how does a board decide which one or ones to imple- ment in their building or association and when? This is definitely an area where one size does not fit all, say the experts. Marc Zuluaga, PE, CEO of Steven Winter Asso- ciates—an architecture and engineering NEW GREEN TECH... continued from page 1 “Every building is going to have to create their own master plan of how they’re going to get to that threshold.” —Kelly Doherty See us at Booth 306