Yes, of course there’s an app for that. It can’t bring you thicker windows or a solar hot water system, but it can grade your energy efficiency based on detailed information you provide. And if you do decide to invest in solar or efficiency retrofits, clear graphics will make those improvements tangible.

Developed by Qreative Medias, the Home Energy Performance App gives your home a letter grade based on its algorithm, which the app explains is “accurate, reliable, used widely across the industry but please do not consider it as certified. A certified rating must be performed by a Certified Surveyor.”

I completely agree with this disclaimer, but the app does ask detailed questions. Some would be difficult to answer if you weren’t physically examining the building in question and didn’t have a trained eye. For example, “Do I have a single-flux controlled forced-draught ventillation?” I have no idea. Others  – like “Do I have single pane windows?” or “Do I have a central air conditioner?” — are much simpler.

The app succeeds in providing a qualitative energy assessment based on detailed home data. It also gives you a rough idea of what kinds of improvements you should consider making to improve your home’s energy efficiency. Before making any significant investments, you should definitely get an real energy audit, but this virtual version definitely gets you thinking in the right direction.

The Home Energy Performance app costs $3.99 to download. It is available through the iPhone App store.

For the non-engineers out there who are interested in learning as much as possible about how solar panels work, here’s a brief overview of micro-inverters and what they can add to a solar installation.

Solar panels need (micro)inverters to convert the electricity they produce to a type that can be used at home. Solar photovoltaic panels produce DC (direct) electrical current, and household appliances use AC (alternating) electrical current. AC and DC refer to the direction that electrons flow when electricity is created. Technical details aside, the key point is that electricity produced by solar panels must be converted from its raw form to a more usable one. Inverters make this conversion possible.

Micro-inverters perform this energy conversion for individual panels or small groups of them, not for the entire system. Traditionally, a solar system would have one inverter for all of the panels, which limits the amount of equipment needed. However, micro-inverters offer a definite efficiency advantage. Here’s why: With a traditional inverter, the solar system can only reach the efficiency of the least efficient panel. Efficiency can vary because of dirt on the panels, shading, or mechanical malfunctions. If each panel has its own inverter, however, all can operate at their maximum possible efficiencies, optimizing the amount of electricity produced in the whole system.

Rapidly improving micro-inverter technology has enabled the growth of “plug and play” solar systems, like the Clarian Sunfish, which was recently profiled in the New York Times. This product and its competitors offer very small scale solar panel systems that can simply be plugged in to start generating electricity, bypassing a more complex installation process.

Micro-inverters are used less frequently for larger commercial or utility scale projects, although there is an ongoing debate over whether or not they should be. For more detailed information on where micro-inverters and traditional inverters are best used, check out the Renewable Energy World podcast Microinverters vs. Central Inverters: Is There a Clear Winner? along with Greentech Media’s article Can Micro-Inverters Penetrate the Megawatt-Scale PV Market?

Technology in this area will continue to evolve. It’s a fun topic to follow.

Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell kicked off September by unveiling a new, $20.5 million, 40-project energy plan for his state. The aim? Create  jobs, boost clean energy use and save energy throughout Pennsylvania.

The funding is coming from three separate funding sources: $13 million from Growing Greener II, $5 million via the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and $2.5 million courtesy of Duquesne Light Co. settlement funds.

According to Rendell, the projects will add 1,400 jobs to the state’s clean energy industry and cancel out nine million tons of carbon emissions. According to the press release, the plan will save and generate a combined 10 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of energy over the total lifetimes of the projects. That is enough to power one million average U.S. homes for a full year.

The $20.5 million in funds is only a small portion of the money that will be poured into the projects. The Pennsylvania Energy Development Authority (PEDA), which has invested $99 million in 201 differenet energy projects throughout the state since 2005, will leverage over $211 million in private funds.

As it currently stands, the state’s renewable energy portfolio requires one-half percent of Pennsylvania’s electricity to come from solar power. When the standards were implemented in 2004, they were considered one of the nation’s highest; over time, other states have surpassed Pennsylvania’s.

Governor Rendell has a long term vision of increasing Pennsylvania’s AEPS:

“The solar industry has grown at a rapid pace despite the uncertain economy. Investors and developers have proven anxious and eager to invest in clean solar energy projects. Venture capitalists alone poured $1.4 billion into the industry last year. Pennsylvania could attract a larger share of that action if we just increased the solar share of our portfolio standards law.”

To follow up on our post yesterday detailing the debates over California’s proposed 33 percent renewable energy standard, we are sad to say that the legislation, SB 722, did not pass. The legislative session ended last night at midnight, and as debate was still raging until the closing bell, no renewable energy standard is set to last beyond the Governator’s reign.

However, there is still hope for a special legislative session, which Arnold could call before the gubernatorial election puts the fate of California’s renewable energy policies into the hands of either Meg Whitman or Jerry Brown. Given his past support for renewable energy in the state, Arnold calling a special session to pass this bill is a definite possibility.

As we said yesterday, though, the bill’s passage depends on appeasing the many interest groups attempting to tip its fine print towards their own interests. The most important points of contention, it seems, are deciding how much of the renewable energy that will be required could be generated outside of the state and streamlining the permitting processes for new generation and transmission, which has been Arnold’s chief pet peeve.

Given the uncertainty of an impending election, let’s hope that the many stakeholders here recognize the importance of compromise. California has been a leader in the realm of renewable energy — particularly solar — and firming up the 2030 standard would go a long way in reducing regulatory uncertainty from the marketplace.

Main Street Power in Boulder, Colorado is getting creative when it comes to finding ways to finance solar energy projects in some of the poorest neighborhoods in Denver and Pueblo, Colorado.

The power company is using state renewable energy credits and federal investment tax credits to finance the 33 total projects at schools, correctional facilities and municipal buildings. By installing the solar energy systems in poor areas, Main Street Power will also be able to utilize federal development tax credits.

What Main Street Power is doing is making use of the New Markets Tax Credits for under-served communities. According to the Denver Post, Main Street is calling the project an instance of both renewable energy development and economic development: the new projects will create construction jobs for those who have recently completed solar training programs and, meanwhile, will generate clean power that will reduce utility bills for people who can most benefit from such savings.

The financing program for all 33 projects combined totals $18 million. Each project is expected to account for 20-30 percent of each building’s energy needs. Through 20-year power purchasing agreements (PPAs), Main Street Power will sell the electricity to Denver Public Schools, Pueblo County and the Colorado Department of Corrections. The rates are expected to be lower than that of state utilities.

Students from Unity College in Maine join prominent environmentalist Bill McKibben next week for a road trip, carrying a very old solar hot water panel from their college campus to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

This panel was originally stationed on the White House roof under Jimmy Carter’s administration, but was later removed by Ronald Reagan, who also removed all the preexisting federal policies conducive to solar. McKibben and his non-profit organization 350.org have made this road trip part of their “Put Solar on It Campaign,” which lobbies world leaders to install solar panels to symbolize their support of renewable energy. According to McKibben, “Solar panels on the White House will remind every visitor to Washington that every roof in America should have solar panels for electricity and hot water on them.”

President Obama has not commented on this effort to reinstall solar on his home, though Press Secretary Robert Gibbs mentioned that solar panels “had been discussed.” Whether or not President Obama actually puts panels back on the White House, however, may ultimately be beside the point. One of the students going on the trip told the Kennebec Journal, “[i]t will be an exercise in social media and event planning and execution. We wanted folks who would represent the college well and really engage folks on the ground, one-on-one.”

Outreach and engagement come easily to this group. Bill McKibben was scheduled to appear last night on the Late Show with David Letterman to discuss the road trip, and 350.org already has a very active social media presence. The movement aims to instill hope and momentum toward comprehensive energy and climate legislation in the United States. Whether or not their efforts get solar panels back on the White House, awareness of renewable energy and the need for federal support will doubtless increase.

Picture a future where renewable energy is the primary source rather than the alternative. Solar photovoltaic (PV) panels on homes and businesses are the norm and each house down the block has a driveway by day that becomes an electric vehicle charging station at night. Everything around you is getting power from the sun, from streetlights, to street signs, to computers.

This is the vision of Hudson Valley Clean Energy (HVCE), a renewable energy company, and The Solar Energy Consortium in Kingston New York, a nonprofit research and advocacy group that’s doing everything it can to promote the adoption of solar technologies. Both are located in New York, a leading state in the U.S. for solar equipment manufacturing and distribution. How we get to the future that these two groups envision, according to the state’s industry leaders, has much to do with our ability to manufacture the necessary products right here in the U.S.

New York, like the U.S., is competing with manufacturing giants Germany and China, both of which have over the past decade made sizable gains in the global market for solar energy equipment. Both countries have enacted national renewable energy laws that both encouraged domestic demand for solar panels and helped boost exports.

For its part, the Solar Energy Consortium is making headway, taking over a vacant, former IBM building in the mid-Hudson Valley and helping to move 38 renewable energy companies into the complex. The companies include solar panel manufacturers and solar appliance developers. For Petra Klein, Vice President of Technology and Strategy for the Solar Energy Consortium, the strategy is simple:

“If you want to grow the solar industry here, you have to produce the equipment here, you have to use the equipment here, and you have to deploy the product here. And then you have to develop an export market.”

Those in the Hudson Valley region are hoping local efforts yield worldly results. According to Record Online, the region created 150 new solar jobs in 2009, and expects to make that figure hit 1,000 by the end of the 2011 calendar year.

The numbers could hit the sun if New York’s legislature passes the New York Solar Jobs and Development Act of 2010, a bill that, if passed, would require the installation of 5,000 megawatts (MW) of solar power statewide by 2o25. The New York Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) says such a bill would create 22,000 new green jobs statewide and generate $20 billion in investment over the next 15 years.

Government officials are currently brainstorming options to make the U.S. manufacturing market more competitive. Tens of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in investment capital hinge on whether or not the United States can develop a sustainable renewable energy manufacturing industry. With unemployment stuck stubbornly high across the U.S., we can only hope all avenues and possibilities will be explored.

Google.org, the philanthropic arm of Google, is offering a new way to provide home energy-saving tips through its PowerMeter, a web tool that lets you monitor your home’s energy use from anywhere you can access the Internet.

This is just one planned effort by Google to measure up against Microsoft’s Hohm energy application, which can gather and display a home’s energy data and gives users a questionnaire in order to help make a home more energy efficient. Google is also developing a solution to gather energy usage information from gas and water meters.

Google’s PowerMeter application evaluates the size of your home and crunch some of your energy use data, both current and historical. With this information, the new feature recommends several ways for you to save energy at home throughout the day. PowerMeter will give you a badge for each energy efficiency recommendation you adopt, and once you’ve made all of those improvements, the PowerMeter will reassess your home and make new recommendations. In other words, the application evolves as your home becomes more energy efficient.

Google has already gone a step further and inked deals with several utility companies that use smart meters in their service areas. Under the arrangement, the smart meters flow energy information into the PowerMeter. This gives customers a breakdown of how much energy individual appliances use, allowing people to compare their own energy use to that of their neighbor’s.

How is this relevant to solar energy? Simply put, if you reduce the amount of electricity you buy from the utility, you’re able to meet a larger portion of your power needs with a solar electric system.

Powermeter’s motto, meanwhile, speaks for itself: “Save energy. Save money. Make a difference.” This is music to our ears.

On Monday, the California Legislature will vote on a bill to raise California’s Renewable Portfolio Standard, potentially requiring 33 percent of electricity generated by the state’s utilities to come from renewable resources by 2020.

State Senator Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) proposed the bill, SB 722, which has drawn attention from stakeholders like the Sierra Club, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, and multiple labor unions. Each group has its own priorities for the bill’s impact, ranging from maximizing green job creation within the state to minimizing local air pollution. A key decision variable is how much of the state’s renewable  electricity must be generated within its borders, since California currently imports a quarter of its electricity from outside state lines. Permitting more renewable electricity to be imported — say, from Arizona — could lower costs. Forcing more to be generated in state, on the other hand, would promote the creation of green jobs within California. As Senator Simitian told the San Jose Mercury News, “[i]t is an extraordinarily complex task, both in respect to the issue itself and the politics surrounding it.”

Similar bills proposed by Senator Simitian have failed in past years, although Governor Schwarzenegger used an executive order to enact the same 33 percent requirement after vetoing last year’s version of the bill. He cited the urgent need to streamline permitting processes for new generating capacity and transmission within the state as his reason for opposing it. Governor Schwarzenegger’s executive order will lose relevance very shortly, however, as a new governor will soon be leading California. The impending election, more than any other variable surrounding this bill, could motivate the compromises and negotiations needed to pass it this year.

Good news for Arizona homeowners: you will soon have (yet another) online source for solar-related information.

The Phoenix Business Journal yesterday reported that the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) will on Wednesday launch a new solar energy information website. Dubbed Arizona Goes Solar, the site will “provide a one-stop source of information on what residents and businesses need to know before they adopt solar.” Interestingly, several of the state’s utility companies — including Arizona Public Service (APS) and Salt River Project (SRP) — have had a hand in the site’s development.

According to the article,

Solar industry officials have been clamoring for more transparency in the industry in recent months, particularly in light of lowered incentive rates.Both APS and SRP cut back their incentives this past spring in the wake of unprecedented demand, prompting those in the industry to inquire about the incentives — where they were being spent and how many incentivized contracts were never fulfilled. Also on the website will be information about the state’s renewable energy standard, which requires utilities to get 15 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2025; educational workshops; and a map showing where residential and commercial solar systems are being installed.

Among the site’s offerings, I’ve got to say the most interesting is the Arizona solar map. The other bits of info are readily available from numerous sources, including this one and this one.