In the One Green Room Per Home "sunario", home owners would buy a smaller solar array and battery system. Not to meet all their power needs, just lights, computers, fans, entertainments, etc. Energy pigs stay on the grid until further development. Everything that has an AC adapter or step-down transformer would go on a low power circuit, off grid.

When?, how?, NOW! :)

Cars have had 12 volt systems for years, RVs prove that low voltage living is possible. If the RV were a little bigger it be a mobile home. Many, many homes especially in industrial cities are just a tad bigger than that. Then look at the International Space Station, the ultimate off grid home in the most hostile environment.

I can't afford an solar array big enough to run my air conditioning, washer/dryer, that huge blower in my furnace, and all my lights and assorted stuff. Perhaps I can start with one or two rooms, cover the AC outlets, install this low power circuit to run all lower power stuff. The smaller solar array and battery system runs the show and the AC grid supplies the heavy appliances and and backs up the low power stuff through a converter box. The whole thing is modular so you can add solar panels and a wind turbine if possible. A group of homes can share or a single home.

Ohio needs to catalog low power equipment (made here) suitable for regular home living. Then map out equipment arrangements so that home owners can do-it-themselves. The cost should be way less. Even a solar computer room is exciting to think about.

When you see a solar panel on an average home, now the green is being felt in the community. Green energy will then be handled by people who otherwise can only hope the grid has some greeness. It also creates a market for green energy on the local and personal level, otherwise I will hedge and waffle about green energy for ever. And when friends come to my house, "hey look at my green room".

  I am glad to see you know Norm...we need to make this happen sooner than later.  Communities that work for everyone.  Thank you for being part of REALNEO and for giving me a reason to feel hopeful.

A caravan of semi trailers pulls into the parking lot. They circle and orient themselves to the sun and unfold and uncover. Platforms and walkways and shrubs/trees in pots and lights on poles are scattered. There are solar panels on everything and inflatable canopys and tents. Different types of wind turbines on masts and conversion panels and batteries. There are e-cars about and a couple of factory built green homes on trailers. Where's the literature? There are pamphletes and books and info as pdf files on free jump drives and DVD's.

It's not a carnival or a circus, it's the traveling green energy show live in your neighborhood.

The green energy show explains what the energy concerns are doing, what you can do and shows the hardware so that green isn't just a feel good virtual thing. From the wonders of grid life, to the possibilities of off-grid life.

When I was a kid a traveling entertainment group came every year, setup in the playground and the whole neighborhood came out to enjoy. Two big trucks, one with the stuff and the other folded out into the stage. I am sorry to say that the Home and Flower Show has lost that freshness. It has become an upper middle-class extension of Home Depot and Lowes.

What is the point? You want people to go green, you have to put green into their heads, so that they can figure out what green is. Then a green future requires I take my kids to be greenly inspired. I read about green stuff in the 70's but the Home and Flower show has disappointed me every year. Now is the time to put the green idea into the public.

What usually happens is that after mandates and pronouncements, the momentum is killed by political wrestling, the uninformed public can not apply appropriate pressure because it is clueless. A green energy show would be good.

They could even settle into an area (like a college campus) and become a semi permanent lab.

  I love it, love it, love it!!  "New" Ward 14 gets lots of sun, especially at Lincoln West High School, or consider the heat sinks at Metrohealth Hospital or Steelyard Commons.  

The person to talk to is Bill Eger at City of Cleveland---the City of Cleveland is proposing projects and looking for recreation centers as the next place to provide demonstration projects, but WHY NOT schools?!

We still can’t learn without a big yellow bird can we?

We need to own the grid, we need to separate it from the utilities, we need to have grids owned by the municipality they exist within and also administer the billing.

Each residential unit needs to be registered and it actual consumption recorded real time.

Adding something on your side needs to be clear, that’s cool but that really needs to be defined so that we do not end up with another layer of con artists. Selling crap that takes more energy to make and creates another layer of disposable and the costs that come with it.

I want a smart grid, if I decide to add energy generation to my home I want it intelligently integrated into my home, I want it to have longevity and the results of my efforts and investments recorded into a publicly accessible data base.

I want a municipal district that see all the nodes on the grid and send out reports, progress reports.

I want local generation that is real and the results and value of which is accountable.

  I agree Oengus.  What ever happened to Cleveland Public Power??

I do know that I can not switch, despite many attempts--Our house is one of the three CEI houses on my street, which is primarily within a CPP service area. 

Our neighborhood is subject to high wind blackouts, and I dread the inevitable power outage--meanwhile, the CPP houses just keep glowing away.
 

This is a Substation it is underground, it serves 25,000 residents it is a park that serves the neighborhood.

The smart meters first and with bidirectional functionality.

We should own the meters and the grid, the billing done through the county auditor office as a regional function. Sectional by separated districts, with separated budgets.

It is a smart system and modular in design, it’s a big investment but if done correctly it could greatly reduce outages and maintenance.

Public utilities….  

Intelligent by design, what is residential, commercial and industrial.

Rebuilding infrastructure and consolidating and clustering industry, addressing road access and rail simultaneously. Rail may be the key catalyst as in redefine its paths with energy distribution and that would really improve the urban landscape.

Having industrial hubs with access to all forms of transport is ideal, markets change we are in a good position if we have the facilities and infrastructure in place.

Residential clusters with commerce, that lead into entirely residential and then green spaces and then industrial areas. Interconnected with rail services as hubs for residential and commerce on commuter that converge into industrial areas that have commercial and interstate roadways.

The SII proposals are fragmented and as we all agree often these CDC’s are very unaccountable. We all know what they say and promote does not always reflect the realty of their results. How do we know if these ventures are affecting the efficiency the municipal operations? Are the ratios or metric improving?

If we all had 90% efficiency furnaces and solar panels on or homes, if we all have energy star appliances and the distribution was owned by us could we pay less for the less energy and then pay more to have a state of the art distribution grid?

I can tell you this if you added smart meters and linked it to the county database you would certainly reduce the cost of billing. You water bill, gas and electric all on one bill, generated by the same office that generated your property tax bill which really needs to become a residency tax. Property tax should be on the land and the residency tax should be on the person(s) that live there. All based on square feet occupied.

Then you have the income and related taxes, this is where you live and this is where you work and thats about RITA being combined into the auditor/ register function.

Then it all about security and accountability, fair for everyone. Link that data to the credit bureaus and you have income to dept qualifiers you can see, a real-time credit report. Then people can see behind the curtain and understand how what they do effect not only them, it affects everyone.

Is this a good location of industry?

What industry is here? What is the list of industry, could we have a total operating function for them? For the entire set of businesses that operate within this section of land.

From Herman north to Breakwater and Case Ave to the rail line. I like to see a real good assessment of that industry.

Because I believe that it could be relocated into an industrial park that had access to the interstate, in modern state of the art green building.

The way I see it is that area is lakefront land, and the industry has no advantages being there.

I also see the potential to accelerate the port relocation, because this area could be dredged and create an island marina, sound crazy? The river is right there and barges could take the dredging away even construction debris could easily be removed with that access to the river.

If they convert the shoreway to a boulevard then that could be a bridge or even the road could be curved in the other direction.

This what is interesting to me, this location is designated industrial and cleared already. Its closer to the interstate with access I-90 from W117th.

Berea road could be disconnected from Detroit at W102th and then any truck traffic directed back to Madison Ave and back to Berea road. From W102th West on Madison should be rezoned industrial. A east west residential cross street between W105 and West Blvd would separate the industrial from residential. That being none of the streets would connect to Madison only to the new cross street.

WIRENET is not addressing the big picture and Detroit Shoreway go along with it, its not intelligent planning.

If an industry is located in the Herman Breakwater area it is disruptive with its traffic and the road access is all residential. Then the issue of electricity and water and sewer industrial is not the same as residential. The priority should be to retain all industry and to enhance it if possible, operating in a new building designed to meet it needs with room for growth. Being energy efficient and with good interstate access.

Then the potential for accelerating the port move is there and real, then adding a new marina and green spaces as well.

You just gotta love the front porch, here you can look out over the hood and converse about what needs to change. Ah, some tea, cup of joe, glass of vino, some brewski, sorry I don't know where that bottled water came from (imported from the Canadian side of Lake Erie).

The smart meter thing I like, makes sense with the grid separated from the grid utility conglomerate. And I too wondered what happened to Cleveland Public Power? Us folk in Lorain have our own Frankenstein's castle, I have no idea if it too is a relic.

The big picture of the total energy network being changed does need to outline all the elements and the effects on all the stakeholders. If energy generation, distribution, maintainence are localized, perhaps better regulation and control can be realized, plus localized circulation of revenues, jobs and energy products.

We were first told that the future was a service economy. Pushing legal paper and flipping burgers is not an economy.

So if the smart meter becomes the energy junction (flux capacitor), you have to balance the supply side and the user side. On the supply side, solar and wind and bio-gas and whatever else we can economically use to offset fossil fuel fired energy production and limit wide area energy distribution (the energy grid cartel). Then on the user side for sure every building and home needs to be upgraded to sip energy rather than guzzle. It is hard because every store sells cheap guzzlers and people are strapped for cash.

New projects often hit the ground with older technology and there is a glut of buildings and homes where retro-fitting is the only recourse.

Lorain needs to transform one neighborhood in the middle of the city into a green village, just do it. Then let the concept spread. Proof of concept with real residents.

This brings me to the Big Yellow Bird Show. The hard sell is that the masses are duped in an energy customer coma paying for life support. So folks need to see, with their own eyes, the meter spinning backward or they won't believe it. Folks need to see a watt meter jump during sunshine or a good breeze. They need to short-sleeve and tea in a green model home. And see a whole room lit with a OLED panel. I don't care how much info is out there, unless there is a practical demonstration bringing it all together in one spot, green will be the whirlygig at the Science Center and separating out pop cans for recycling. Home and Flower show needs a big yellow bird makeover. It's not about dumbing down and simplifying for entertainment, it's about what products are here today and work in Ohio.

Plus folks need to be told that green jobs are not always working for an energy production and managment company. Better energy utilizing products are sorely needed. And we got to stop punishing folks for using less energy. I hope First Energy learned a lesson (I doubt it!).