S O L A R T O T H E R E S C U E
F O R Y O U R B U S I N E S S
SOLAR Thermal– Heat from the sun is a
great green way to provide clean
affordable energy for your business. With
solar thermal you can heat your water,
your pool, your processes, and your space.
It can even supply you air-conditioning
needs. This technology is well established
and reliable, and one of the most
economical solutions on the market. Solar
thermal is also a great way to bring energy
costs back down to earth. Your American
Solar Works partner looks forward to
showing you all the benefits of solar
thermal and helping you pick a system
A M E R I C A N S O L A R W O R K S
American Solar Works through its network of talented engineers and installation partners, continu-ously brings you state of the art high-performance renewable energy solutions.
Our commitment to building a clean, sustainable, independent energy future for the country is cap-tured in our credo.
“American Solar Works is about our children's future. Founded by renewable energy profession-als, it is our commitment to bring you, your family or your business the very best solar energy technology at the most affordable prices possible. Working together we will help alleviate the threat of global warming and ensure sustainable prosperity for future generations of Ameri-cans.“
We encourage you to read through this brochure, ask all the questions you like of your American Solar Works green consultant, and choose the right solution to meet your business's economic and environmental objectives.
Sincerely,
The American Solar Works Team
A N O T E F R O M T H E A M E R I C A N S O L A R W O R K S F A M I L Y
F O R A C U S T O M I Z E D A S S E S S M E N T : 8 8 8 . 8 S O L A R W O R K S
W H Y S O L A R ?
I T ’ S Y O U R B U S I N E S S
At one time, selecting your fuel source was fairly easy. You either had the choice dictated to you by a utility company or you chose some other fossil fuel. Then, it was just a matter of time be-fore for the next rate increase. Now, with the advent of new solar thermal technologies and some nice tax incentives you do have a choice. And a smart one at that. Solar thermal will bene-fit you, your customer relations, your risk expo-sure, your profitability and your after tax income. We’ll tell you how and why in the next few pages.
H A R N E S S T H E E N E R G Y S O U R C E Y O U A L R E A D Y O W N !
Every business has the solar rights to the sunlight that falls on its property. In many cases this sunlight has enough heat to help keep your water hot, your office warm, your pool heated, or your processes at the appropriate temperature. All you need is a way to convert the sunlight you already have into energy you can readily use. We’re here to show you how.
U S E T H E S M A R T A L T E R N A T I V E T O F O S S I L F U E L
Unless your book keeper has been too afraid to open your utility or fuel bill lately, you know all too well that the price of heating fuel has been rising steadily. With solar energy your fears are over! Because the price of the sun’s energy will never change, you will never have to worry about a rate increase. Act now and you will keep your “fuel” bill at one low rate for years to come.
C A P T U R E T H E S U N ’ S W A R M T H W I T H S O L A R C O L L E C T O R S ! American Solar Works Evacuated tube collectors capture the sun’s warmth with heat pipe technol-ogy. Heat pipes are used in many pieces of high tech equipment from computers to radar arrays. Heat pipes are often used for shedding heat. We use them for collecting the suns free energy. The heat is then transferred to a thermal store on your premises. When you need to heat your water, your business, your pool, or your proc-esses the heat is drawn from the thermal stor-age unit to where heat is required. Alternatively we can use the heat directly for continuous proc-esses or in conjunction with an absorption chiller. What could be more safe, reliable and natural? Nothing to burn! Nothing to offend your customers or the EPA!
W H A T C A N Y O U D O W I T H S O L A R T H E R M A L ?
Heating hotel domestic hot water
Restaurants, groceries, and food processing facilities need hot water to keep their cus-tomers safe.
Provide showers for athletes and students
Wash your livestock or your customers cars
Provide your customers with “green” clean clothes at your laundry mat.
Heat your building in the winter and augment your absorption chilling in the summer
Green up your process heating & make the EPA’s day.
Let the sun shine on your medical clinic, hospital or vet-erinary practice.
Any business that has a need for hot water, has a rea-son to get their heat from the sun !
S Y S T E M S I Z I N G ?
Making sure your solar thermal system is sized properly is a critical task. We utilize, ASHRE met-rics, measurements, computer simulations and experience. The sizing is a careful balancing act between space considerations, budgetary con-siderations, aesthetic considerations and energy usage considerations. We balance all these. And we never try to sell you a super- sized system just a right-sized one.
Usually it will supplement 50% to 70% of your needs. This ensures that your system will duce as much energy as you need without pro-ducing an overabundance.
W H Y W O U L D A S M A R T B U S I N E S S P E R S O N C H O O S E S O L A R ? A smart investment is one that adds value im-mediately and continues paying healthy divi-dends thereafter. And smart business is all about making smart investments. Here are just a few reasons why Solar Thermal is a smart in-vestment.
Immediately stabilize or reduce your fuel costs: For many applications solar over the long term is the least expensive means of providing heat. “Simple solar hot water sys-tems available today can cut natural gas us-age up to 50% per home or business.”
An added benefit of ASW solar thermal is price stability. Would your current fuel pro-vider or utility write you a fixed price energy contract for 5, 10 or 20 years ? Not in your
a solar contractor we know the price of en-ergy, 5, 10 and 20 years from now and we offer fixed prices.
Firms underwriting mortgages now count the savings from on site green energy production towards the free cash a business would need to buy your property. This means that the property should fetch a higher market price with green energy than without. Not for granola reasons but because of straight for-ward risk/refor-ward and annuity cash flow analysis.
The federal government will give you a tax credit equal to 30% of the value of the sys-tems. Those dollars come right off the top off your tax bill. Just think of how much you have to raise your gross for every dollar of after tax income.
The value of the system also qualifies for a 5 year accelerated depreciation schedule. The depreciation plus the credits means about 50% of the system cost is subsidized de-pending on your firms tax appetite.
In many states these systems qualify for ad-ditional state subsidies.
You will gain additional income by selling the green attributes of the energy.
Your solar thermal investment should yield from 10% to 20%.
Solar thermal is 5 times more efficient than PV and a fraction of the price.
Make a tangible improvement to the environ-ment—priceless !
S M A R T E R T H A N Y O U R A V E R A G E G R E E N T E C H N O L O G Y ?
Solar thermal is one of the most established green technologies in the world. It is one of the lowest cost
green technol-ogy that you can find. For example solar thermal pro-duces 5 times as much energy for one sixth
For those who are into counting, in 2001 solar thermal had an installed base of 69 GW, wind had 23 GW and PV had 1GW.
American Solar Works offers you a choice of evacuated tube technology or flat plate solar thermal technology depending on your needs. For high temperature or northern climates we offer evacuated tube collectors. If your needs are low temperature south of the Mason Dixon, then we offer a flat plate solution.
R E P R I C E L E S S R E A S O N S
We’re all concerned about air quality, and we can all do our part to reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. Your small commer-cial solar thermal system will produce the equivalent of 20Mwh a year and thus prevent the introduction of 17,600 lbs of carbon from being introduced into the atmosphere. Accord-ing to a study by the University of Wisconsin-Madison, equipping 75% of U.S. buildings and homes with solar thermal technologies by 2015 would cut more than 300 million tons of CO2 pollution each year.
The carbon savings varies depending on the form of fuel that your solar thermal system re-places.
Carbon Dioxide Emission
Fuel Pounds of Carbon per Mbtu Gasoline 156.4
Diesel 161.4
LPG 139.0
Natural Gas 117.1 Fuel Oil, #1,2,4 & diesel 161.4
Coal 219
We’ve all heard about the effects of global warming and some of us have seen them first-hand—now we can do something about it!
A S A M P L E D E S I G N F O R T H E T E C H N I C A L L Y I N C L I N E D
At this point your are probably asking yourself well what does one of these systems look like. The diagram to the left is a simplified version of a commercial system.
The design of the commercial system is very similar but the commercial system is typically about 20 to 40 times larger.
S O W H A T N E X T ?
Now that we’ve shown you what solar thermal can do to meet your energy needs, your financial needs and you environmental priorities, what are the next steps?
First:: Have an American Solar Works represen-tative come and visit your firm.
Second: Let them look at your heating and hot water equipment.
Third: We’ll look at what types of energy you are using, when you are using it, how much it costs and what your priorities are.
Fourth: We’ll look at how your energy consump-tion varies over the course of the year and what drives your energy usage; like customer volume, occupancy rates or calving season.
The Return: What you’ll get is an thorough analy-sis of the solar opportunities that await your firm. We’ll present a few options and cover the poten-tial systems’ sizing, their ROI’s, their tax bene-fits, their energy savings and their environ-mental impact.
Then you will just need to decide what is the right option for your firm. Whichever one is se-lected you’ll look great in your bosses eyes, your customers eyes and the next generations eyes.
H A R N E S S I N G Y O U R E N E R G Y
R E L A X , A N D L E A V E T H E L I F T I N G T O U S !
We can quickly install solar thermal domestic hot-water systems, space heating, or
pool-heating systems. Once you’ve chosen the system that is right for you, you’ll put down a deposit and the project will begin. Here’s what to ex-pect.
1) We will arrange for local permitting.
2) Upon receipt of the appropriate local permits, we will schedule the installation with your personnel. The installation time is depend-ent upon the size and complexity of the job and our friend, the weather. But typically it will only take a few weeks.
3) Concurrent with the installation, we arrange the proper inspections by the municipal au-thorities.
4) After the last inspection, your system will be turned on. It will immediately begin saving money for your business, reduce your expo-sure to future rate increases and begin
re-5) Two months after the inspection, an engineer will visit to inspect the system and confirm that it is performing to specifications.
