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Untitled Statewide Daylighting Program Emerges . . . . . . . . . . 2
Co-op Customers Flock to Green Power . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Wanted: New Renewable Power Plants . . . . . . . . . . . 5
High Schools Take a Shine to Solar Energy . . . . . . . . 6
Renew Plans Clean Energy Forum for 1999 . . . . . . . 7

I
NSIDE
. . .
Using Solar Electric Systems for Public Spaces

Volume 6, Number 3
Fall 1998
WISCONSIN
Through visits and ongoing dis-
cussions with 21 park managers who
indicated interest at the conference,
Larry Krom, project coordinator, iden-
tified numerous PV applications for
individual parks. The most common
were off-grid restroom lighting & ven-
tilation, water pumping, building light-
ing, communications, and sign lighting.
Specific off-grid PV systems were pro-
posed for 13 Wisconsin State Parks and
Forests, ranging in size from 120 W to
2640 W. All were able to more than
pass a cost-effective measure, based
on utility line extension costs and the
surcharges usually applied to remote,
low-load customers.
The goal of the project was to cre-
ate an ongoing program of PV installa-
tions tailored to Wisconsin state agen-
cies, beginning with the WI DNR, and
built on lessons learned from the na-
tional park system.
Along with emphasizing the role
of photovoltaics in environmental stew-
by Shelly Laffin

T
he Wisconsin Department of Natural
Resources (WI DNR), with program co-
funding support from the U.S. Department of En-
ergy, is installing seven off-grid photovoltaic (PV)
systems this year. Four of the PV systems have
been supplying power all summer. Solar-powered
restroom /storeroom lighting was installed at Turtle
Flambeau Scenic Waters Area in northern Wiscon-
sin near Mercer. Two similar PV systems were in-
stalled at Kettle Moraine State Forest - Southern
Unit, along with a solar-powered headquarters sign
light.
Two more PV systems, powering restroom
lighting / ventilation (everyones favorite) and well
pumping, are being located at Kettle Moraine. In
addition, a 2.4 kW PV system (with backup LP
generator) will power the Escanaba Lake Fishery
Research Station in the Northern Highland-
American Legion State Forest. Currently, the 1999
plan for PV installations includes a hybrid PV / LP
generator system to power Rock Island State Park
and power for the contact station at Peninsula State
Park. Both are in Door County.
The National Park Service has long been a
proponent of renewable energy, with over 1,300
PV systems in National Parks and within the Bu-
reau of Land Management. Prior to 1998, Wiscon-
sin's Department of Natural Resources had just six
photovoltaic systems installed in the entire state
park and forest system.
The current effort to install more photovoltaic
systems in Wisconsin Parks and Forests began in
1996. As part of the Interstate Renewable Energy
Council, the Wisconsin Energy Bureau participated
in a national effort to identify photovoltaic applica-
tions that were both cost-effective and well suited
to individual needs in state agencies. Wisconsin
State Parks and Forests were the first to receive
information and technical assistance with a project
called Park Power, initiated at the 1996 Wiscon-
sin Parks Conference.
ardship and education, additional
parts of the project included: Locating cofunding for Wis-
consin Park and Forest PV sys-
tems to accelerate installations. Developing bid and installation
guidelines that could be used
by other state agencies. Sustainability concerns -- en-
couraging business opportuni-
ties for Wisconsin installers
and vendors in state procure-
ment of PV systems.
Although many park sites
could benefit from PV systems, a
combination of the budget planning
process and needs assessment dic-
tates which parks will receive PV
systems. Park managers usually
must submit plans for improve-
(Continued on page 3)
Stand In Line
Park Power Page 2
VOLUME 6, NUMBER 3
VOLUME 6, NUMBER 3
The Renewable Quarterly
Fall 1998
The Renewable Quarterly
tenance and energy costs). Another is
that virtually every architect is aware of
at least one example of an improperly
executed daylit structure. As a result
daylighting has acquired a somewhat
undeserved reputation of being a high-
risk proposition.
The third, sadly, is that energy costs
are too trivial in the overall scheme of
things to warrant much concern among
building owners. This is true even in
states with high electricity prices, such
as California, Massachusetts and Illi-
nois. For daylighting to make much
headway in the commercial building
market, architects will have to learn how
to employ daylighting design principles
without driving up the initial cost of the
building.
Nevertheless, architects are becom-
ing increasingly aware that buildings
with properly controlled natural lighting
are more pleasant spaces to work or
learn than conventional buildings. The
more comfortable a building's occupants
are, the more productive they will be.
While measuring worker productivity is
an inexact science at best, there is grow-
ing anecdotal evidence suggesting that
daylit interiors often results in higher
reading scores and better-behaved stu-
dents at schools, and higher levels of
worker satisfaction and lower rates of
absenteeism and employee turnover at
the workplace. Even a slight increase in
employee output yields economic bene-
fits that vastly outweigh the marginal
costs of daylighting.
Institutional support for daylighting
will be enhanced greatly once the
ECW's statewide daylighting program
gets rolling. Through this program,
which will be funded largely with utility
ratepayer dollars, builders and engineers
will have access to design assistance and
technical support that will help them
gain the confidence they need to incor-
porate daylighting design principles into
their own work. The challenge of this
program, as one expert described it, is to
demonstrate daylighting principles
through simple building designs that can
serve as "repeatable models of success",
techniques that other architects can bor-
row and assimilate into their own vo-
cabulary.
The program owes its existence to
several RENEW initiatives, beginning in
1992, to promote daylighting as a viable
and cost-effective strategy for reducing
electricity consumption. These include
several presentations by such noted day-
lighting experts as Steven Ternoey of
Light Forms and Dr. Donald Aitken of
the Union of Concerned Scientists. In
their distinct ways, each speaker made
the point that while daylighting had
enormous potential for
reducing peak demand
loads in buildings, its
value to utilities would
not be realized without
a significant policy
push.
Later, as a RENEW ex-
pert witness in Advance Plan 7, Dr. Ait-
ken presented compelling testimony be-
fore the Public Service Commission ex-
plaining how and why Wisconsin rate-
payers would benefit from a utility-
supported program to support daylight-
ing. That occurred in January 1995. An-
other three years would pass before the
PSC finally ruled in favor of establish-
ing a daylighting program. During that
time, Dr. Aitken traveled nearly a dozen
times to Wisconsin from his home in
California to present workshops, pro-
vide guidance to architects, and advise
the ECW daylighting committee with its
recommendations whatever it took to
keep the process moving forward. Many
people contributed to the ultimate suc-
cess of our initiative, none more so than
Dr. Aitken. We at RENEW owe a great
debt to Dr. Aitken for his tireless and
effective advocacy on behalf of day-
lighting in Wisconsin.

° ° ° ° ° °

O
ne of RENEW's long-
standing priorities, a state-
wide initiative to promote daylighting as
an everyday architectural practice, is
about to become a reality this fall. The
daylighting initiative, which will be ad-
ministered by the Energy Center of Wis-
consin (ECW), is aimed to help archi-
tects and building designers achieve sig-
nificant energy savings in their building
designs while simultaneously creating
more appealing work and learning envi-
ronments.
Daylighting, the use of natural light
(indirect sunlight) to illuminate building
interiors, is a well-known strategy for
shaving a building's electric load at peak
demand periods. Daylighting can cut
peak loads by as much as two-thirds in
new construction and nearly half in ma-
jor retrofit projects.
Daylighting is not
only the coolest source
of light available to
building designers, but
potentially the least ex-
pensive as well. As en-
ergy consumption in
commercial buildings is
dominated by the need to light and cool
interior spaces, reducing the amount of
heat-producing electric lighting per
square foot reduces cooling loads as
well. Daylighting enables engineers to
specify smaller, less costly HVAC sys-
tems in new