Solar Energy Case Studies
Plenty of us have imagined the ideal sustainable community: Greenhouses attached to every house, growing your own fruits and vegetables, knowing our neighbors, and being able to take a short walk to shops and entertainment. Hunt Utilities Group (HUG) in Pine River, MN is trying to make the idea of resilient living a reality with a number of research...
West Central Minnesota has been the hub of much excitement with the beginning of the Youth Energy Summit (YES!) program, which engages teams of youth in action projects to literally put energy into our future. In Willmar, the high school YES! team took a particularly bold approach—fixing up an old greenhouse, heating it with renewable energy, and...
It’s difficult to get teenagers to clean their room, much less take on a project, but that’s just what the students at Northfield School of Arts and Technology (ARTech) did. ARTech is a charter school in Northfield, Minnesota, comprised of talented students in grades 6-12. The first time the school received a grant from the SE CERTs, it was for an...
Norm and Mary Erickson of Hazelnut Valley Farm retired and started a hazelnut farm in Lake City, MN. Their nutty adventures into the business of growing, harvesting, and processing the crop led them to install a solar-heated greenhouse with many innovative features. They look forward to a future where hazelnuts can be profitably converted into...
With a vast agricultural industry and resources spread over fields and acres, how do you measure the true renewable energy resources of Minnesota? The Agricultural Utilization Research Institute and partners in Southern MN have been working on populating a template to capture the renewable energy potential of their communities.
Dairy farmers are an industrious group by nature, and farmer and entrepreneur Peter Reese of Goodhue County has eyes for common sense and untapped opportunities. The basic concept of Perpetual Harvest, LLC, came from Peter’s thoughts about how our economy is under-utilizing available and renewable local resources.
The Bakken, Minneapolis’ museum of Electricity in Life, is devoted to educating the public about the role of electricity in our lives. Their exhibits cover every aspect of electricity from our own brain function to the inner workings or our televisions. Since its founding in the 1970s the mission has been to “inspire a passion for science and its...
Part of the challenge of teaching is getting students involved and excited about the material they are learning. As science, and especially learning about alternative energy sources becomes more important in today’s world, it is more vital than ever that students are learning about renewable energy sources.
RREAL, a manufacturer of solar thermal panels for air heating, believes that solar technology should be available to people of all income levels. They address this issue by producing an affordable solar-powered furnace and working with local communities and governments to deliver the product to those most in need of energy alternatives.
Greg Loek and Kathy Rice started exploring energy use in their home, and began with some low-hanging fruit, like energy conservation. Before they knew it, they were installing a ground-source heat pump and a solar PV system! This is the story of their clean energy journey.
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