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Ecottech Energy Systems and the Imagine This! Home & Landscape Tour

by Christy Greenwald

   Join the tour!  The 4th annual Imagine This!  Home and Landscape Tour, that is.  Feast your eyes on 11 of Bellingham’s most interesting eco-friendly homes and landscapes, two of which feature solar panel installations by Bellingham native Dana Brandt’s business, Ecotech Energy Systems. 
   According to Brandt, Bellingham and the rest of Washington State are under the wrong impression about our potential to use solar power as a major energy provider to both homes and businesses, and he sees a real potential for solar power here in the future.
   “It’s not as cloudy as we think,” asserts Brandt. 
   We recall more of the cloudy time than sunny time in this area because when we’re planning our days, we oversimplify the weather as cloudy or sunny in our minds.  Luckily, solar panels don’t need constant sunlight to produce good results.   Our latitude gives us a range between 16 hour days and 8 hour nights and vice-versa, depending on the season.  We may see mostly clouds during the winter, but since daylight hours only constitute about a quarter of our winter hours, the lack of sunlight is not making such an impact on the amount of solar energy we can harness. 
   “The long summer days even it out,” Brandt explains.
   Brandt has been working with alternative energy for about 6 years.  He received a degree in electrical engineering from Seattle Pacific University, and helped create a photovoltaic and engine generator hybrid system with an AC mini-grid in Uganda for his graduate thesis.  He also worked at a research facility in Belize working with micro-hydro and solar energy.   The use of this energy made sense to him, so he came home to Bellingham to found Ecotech Energy Systems about a year and half ago. As a member of Sustainable Connections, Ecotech Energy Systems is a model for sustainable business practices and has recently taken the Whatcom Watershed Business Pledge. Brandt maintains his company vehicle, recycles as much material as possible, and even gives shipment packaging back to companies when they’ll take it.
   Brandt receives at least 2 or 3 serious inquiries a week, and has been seeing his business steadily grow. Incentives to invest in solar energy include long-term pay-off if panels are installed in homes, and tax credits to businesses that choose to go solar.  Increasing energy costs in the future will make solar power even more financially beneficial.  The entire process of installing a solar panel system, including surveying, only takes about one month.
   The environmental incentives are numerous as well.  According to the 2003 Department of Ecology data, the average home in Washington contributes 3,244 lbs of carbon dioxide, 6.3 lbs of nitrogen oxides emissions and 17.8 lbs of sulfur dioxide because power is derived from nuclear, coal and natural gas sources.  Solar energy is a clean, non-polluting alternative that helps reduce the output of these contaminants into our atmosphere.
   The panels themselves can be sustainably produced, with the only catch being the use of a lead solder, which is extremely common in many products we buy regularly.  However, the Mitsubishi Company leads by example by producing lead-free panels.   Another down-side is that the production costs are so enormous that panels are often  produced in Mexico instead of locally.
   Dana has been working on both local and global levels to provide energy without using fossil fuels.  His vision is shared around the world.  The more people who are willing to commit to the long-term investment, the more demand there will be for panel production, and maybe eventually a production plant will operate in Washington.  We can work to have a brighter future with solar power here in Bellingham.
   Ecotech Energy Systems has taken the Whatcom Watershed Business Pledge.  For more information on how you or your business can participate in the Pledge, please contact Sustainable Connections.  Catch Ecotech at Stop #5 on the Imagine This! Home and Landscape Tour July 8 & 9.  See the 1.52 KW Photovoltaic system which will pay for itself, is already out-producing estimates for energy production, and will help reduce the pollution the household creates by avoiding reliance on fossil fuels. Visit http://www.sconnect.org/greenbuilding/events/tourdetails for more information.