Our solar arrays have been in for over a month now, so let’s check in on the systems.

Moontree Studios (7.1 kW DC power)

So far, things are performing as expected. As much as I want exciting things to happen, the panels are actually kind of… boring. No moving parts to lubricate or replace, just electrons flowing. And boring infrastructure is good, because that means it’s working and we can focus on other things.

Photo (and install) by Ag Technologies of Rochester, IN.

Our intention with Moontree is not to take the buildings “off the grid.” While interesting in an experimental sense, there’s not really an advantage in doing so for us. We partner with the grid with a bi-directional exchange of electricity, allowing us to deploy renewable energy at a cheaper cost (therefore, to install more of it). We didn’t spend any money on batteries. At the peak of the day, we are credited for excess electrons that are sent back to the grid and will feed the next available building. When we are running a deficit, we draw from the grid. This arrangement is called “net metering.”

In the end, we expect the Moontree Gallery and Shop to be 40% solar powered, 25% wind, and the remaining 35% by the grid (that’s another post, but you can see real-time grid data here).

Nevertheless, I thought it would be neat to see the solar and wind production data on a single chart. The two systems are from different manufactures, running different software, so it was… tricky. But nothing that a little time with an Excel sheet couldn’t fix! (Just don’t ask me to do this for each day).

Don’t worry too much about the units on the vertical (y) axis. Just looking at the relative values across the course of one 24-hour day.

The orange line shows solar production. The “perfect” curve of solar production we would get on a day with no clouds… the power output steadily rises until midday, plateaus, then descends with the setting sun. On this day, there were clearly a few clouds starting around 11:30 AM.

The wind is a little less predictable. Some days have virtually no wind at lower altitudes. Others are quite productive. For this day, the wind starting picking up around 3:30 PM and provided power through midnight. Again, the nice thing about net metering we as individuals don’t really care when the power is produced, just how much total by the end of the month or year. Each day’s chart will look different.

Wastewater Plant (75.52 kW DC power)

Our less visible solar installation is about 10x the size of the Moontree array. We located it in an adjacent cattle pasture, which we determined was better than any of the alternatives we had examined (roofs, parking lots, etc). Sheep routinely graze under solar arrays in Europe, but cattle are simply too big and powerful (and curious). So after the install was complete, we put up the fence. It was a team effect, and we all learned a little something. The solar production has already “paid off” the financial cost of the fence, and probably the ecological debt of the metal panels and wooden posts.

Following the example of some pioneering solar installations, we plan to eventually replace the pasture grasses under the panel with low-growing native wildflowers to give a boost to pollinators, including the honey bees just down the road at our greenhouse. Solar honey… what’s sweeter than that?!

I took a few readings of the electric meter to make sure everything is tracking properly. We have been pushing on to the grid about 45% more electricity than we have been pulling. That’s a good feeling! And it was as-designed… we will use up these credits on our bill as the days get shorter and cloudier and production begins to drop. After a year, we expect the system to cover about 80-90% of our energy needs for the plant.

Photo by Ag Technologies, right after installation.

Killowatt-hours and voltages and such can get a little confusing. So let’s put it in a more tangible way: in the the first 5 weeks of production, the wastewater arrays have produced enough energy to run my home for about 2 years. Cool!

I look forward to coming back next year with a full year of data. My home array just had it’s first anniversary, so I’ll be posting that data soon.

This article appeared in the June issue of Ripples, our internal publication on The Center at Donaldson.

Electric car charging station attracts passing motorists

When we received a grant from the Marshall County Community Foundation to install an electric car charging station, we had three goals: offer charging as a service to co-workers, use the infrastructure for our own fleet, and provide some electrons for visitors as well.

I was walking by the other day and saw a new car plugged in at the station, a Chevy Bolt with out-of-state plates.

Curious, I snapped a photo and left my card on the windshield. The next day I got an e-mail from Stacey, the driver:

“Thanks for letting us stop and charge!  We met the nicest people during our visit at the center.  Sister Mary bought my husband and I lunch and Rachel and Matthew at MoonTree showed us around the campus, gallery, and art studios. What a cool place that you guys have! Our visit exceeded our expectations and we stayed much longer than we expected just because we were having a good time.” 

It turns out that Stacey had found our charging station on a smartphone app and made a pitstop here on her way back from Chicago. Matthew later explained to me,

“They were quite pleasant people, a former army serviceman and artist and his wife, an architect.  They had talked about how they are moving out of the Chicago and onto a farm.  We talked about agri-tourism and eco-tourism and how we had prime location and resources for both and how his family farm ended up making enough money to keep the farm profitable doing fall-time agritourism (corn maze and pumpkin patch).  All in all, quite the serendipitous encounter and a testament to something as simple as an electric charging port attracting certain type of people with similar values and ecological considerations.”

Sometimes, all it takes is a little “spark.” Here’s a big THANK YOU to all the departments and co-workers who make The Center at Donaldson a place of ministry and hospitality.

Some great design work by our communications department!

After one year on the job, I started a blog. It’s been a year already! Let’s see where we are at.

My inaugural post promised 3 blogs a month. I’m proud to say I only failed once on that account, in January (2 posts). Hopefully I made up by averaging 1 post per week, for 53 total. Ok… a few were just advertisements for local events and such, but hopefully I’m getting you something to really chew on at least once a month.

The top three posts have been:
1) a post on the latest research about the diversity of macrofungi in Indiana (237 views)

2) my summary of what it was like to live with a used electric vehicle for a year (115 views)

3) our press release announcing our solar energy installation (81 views)

There are 48 subscribers, more than I had hoped! Six have joined in the last 6 months. Unfortunately, the majority of posts have fewer total views than I have subscribers… which suggests maybe people are getting the e-mail notification of a new post but never opening or reading it. Maybe I need to create more sensational (“click-bait”) titles! 🙂

As for the investment of time and energy into the site, I like the steady (and light) pressure of having to publish something regularly. It pushes met to keep communicating and writing. It’s part of what I’m supposed to do (and besides, I enjoy it! Shhh…).

Moving into the second year, I don’t particularly have any new goals or objectives. I like the balance I’ve struck so far.

But… you are the readers. What would YOU like to see over the next year? Longer posts? Shorter ones? Less scientific lingo? More? Guest writers? Leave a note in the comments section. Thanks for reading, please share!

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Now, since this is my blog, I’m going to post two pictures for no particular reason other than I think they are beautiful.

3 fat Monarch caterpillars on a single Butterfly weed plant, Plymouth, IN

One really adorable child! Growing up far too fast.

Last year, we established half a dozen pollinator patches across our campus.

We have a lots of landscaped (mowed) ground here. Mowed areas provide space for recreation and walking, and give a sense of openness that we all enjoy in landscapes around our buildings. However, there’s eventually a limit to the space we need. We found several nooks and crannies of mowed lawn that were better served as wildflower patches. Together, they amount to about 2/3 of an acre.

The benefits of replacing small patches of lawn are several: less labor and fuel spent on mowing, more visually interesting space (varied texture and color changing over time), pollinator habitat, carbon sequestration, and water infiltration, to name a few. Mowed lawns are not ecological dead zones – far from it – but they don’t match the ecological services provided by a biodiverse mix of native plants.

All that is true, but I still think the highest benefit is beauty. As Emily Dickenson wrote, “The only Commandment I ever obeyed — ‘Consider the Lilies.”

Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta) is an annual or biennial plant that bursts into bloom in the early stages of a restoration.

Also, there are all kinds of mysteries hidden in the many connections between the soil, plants, insects, and air. Just today I read about spiders flying on balloons of silk, lifted by electrostatic forces when wind is absent, flying thousands of feet up in the air. WHAT???! What other wonders might we be neglecting or harming in our ignorance?

As Pope Francis noted in Laudato si,

It may well disturb us to learn of the extinction of mammals or birds, since they are more visible. But the good functioning of ecosystems also requires fungi, algae, worms, insects, reptiles and an innumerable variety of microorganisms. Some less numerous species, although generally unseen, nonetheless play a critical role in maintaining the equilibrium of a particular place… But a sober look at our world shows that the degree of human intervention, often in the service of business interests and consumerism, is actually making our earth less rich and beautiful, ever more limited and grey, even as technological advances and consumer goods continue to abound limitlessly. We seem to think that we can substitute an irreplaceable and irretrievable beauty with something which we have created ourselves.

Indeed.

I’ll be doing some more formal plant surveys later, but today at midday I simply went to poke around the flowers and snap photos. (Please excuse the poor photo quality… I didn’t take a nice camera out, just my smartphone). The prominent pink/purple flowers are Wild Bergamont, aka Beebalm, aka Monarda fistulosa. For scale, the flower heads average about 2″ diameter. I was struck by the diversity of life just within a small space.

Enjoy.

We welcomed summer on the solstice last week with a ribbon-cutting ceremony for our solar array at Moontree Studios. You can see the video here, on Facebook.

As a data fiend, you know I was excited about watching the kilowatt-hours roll in on our online interface, which shows live and historic energy production. Below is a snapshot. There is also a wind turbine tied into the same connection, so we are going to make some fun charts with the data!

Don’t miss this event!

Learn more by visiting Purdue’s Indiana Climate Change Impacts Assessment.

While you’re here, I wanted to share a few statistics from the 2017 net metering summary:

*More customer-owned renewable energy (mostly solar) was installed last year in Indiana (29.2 MW) than all previous years combined (20.0 MW).

*There is still room to grow… the existing 49.2 MW of net-metered systems is still only about 1/5 of the maximum capacity allowed under current rules.

*The net-metering customer base increased 76% in a single year, now reaching nearly 2,000 Hoosier customers.

*Indiana has a total of 275 MW of solar capacity installed. Utility-scale projects are now being planned for the state that are 150-200 MW in size. (Yes, you read that right).

*Percentage of Indiana’s electricity that comes from solar: 0.39%. Our regional electric grid can probably withstand several more years of rapid growth before running into any planning issues around solar’s intermittency. Still lots of room and jobs to grow.

*The solar group-purchase known as “Solarize Indiana” wrapped up last December, and totaled nearly 100 installations across the South Bend-Goshen area, adding up to more than 700 kW. Read more here.

*More reading: “Solar advocates believe industry will overcome net metering changes.”

A little belated, but here’s the press release:

THE CENTER AT DONALDSON RECEIVES GRANT FOR EQUIPMENT TO CONDUCT PRESCRIBED BURNS

DONALDSON, IN – On April 11, 2018, The Center at Donaldson was awarded $4,400 for its prescribed burn program from Arrow Head County Resource Conservation and Development. This grant allows The Center at Donaldson to purchase equipment and protective gear that will allow the program to increase the number of acres that can brought under a safe and efficient rotation of planned fire as a form of land management.

Adam Thada, Director of Ecological Relationships, started the prescribed burn program in 2016. “During our first dormant season, our team burned 20 acres,” Thada said. “This year, we grew to 32 acres. We would like to burn more, but our scale had been limited by our equipment. Now we can continue to expand. We have up to 170 acres on the property that could benefit from the use of fire.”

The original ecological communities of the Midwest evolved in the context of periodic fires, whether by lightning or by humans. Prairie, savanna, and oak woodlands are some of these biodiverse systems found at The Center at Donaldson.

“Without the use of fire,” Thada noted, “these systems are returning to more shade-tolerant communities that fare poorly during droughts. This is happening right as we are seeing increasing temperatures and drought stress due to climate change. Our management goal is to encourage resilient, fire-adapted systems that can carry biodiversity into the future.”

More of this!

Modern prescribed fire crews receive certification through training programs and use specific equipment and gear. Some of the items purchased with this grant money include a weather meter to record wind speed and humidity, fire-resistant clothing, helmets, and radios. The main piece of equipment purchased is a 50-gallon sprayer. When mounted to the back of a UTV (utility vehicle), it enables a fire crew more off-road flexibility, reaching place that a pickup truck cannot get to.

The effects of the first prescribed burns have already been seen. There is a general increase in the amount of wildflowers seen on the forest floor and in the wetlands. After a thick layer of cattail litter was burned off this spring, marsh marigolds burst into bloom within weeks.

Thada said, “I am grateful to Arrow Head County Resource Conservation and Development for investing in the stewardship of our natural areas. My hope is that we can expand the use of safe and beneficial prescribed fire to other landowners who are interested in the health of their lands.”

The Arrow Head County Resource Conservation and Development is a non-profit organization whose purpose is to provide local leadership for developing and carrying out a plan for the orderly conservation, improvement, development and wise use of natural resources.

Members of the Arrow Head County Resource Conservation and Development Area, Inc. presented Adam Thada, Director of Ecological Relationships, a check for The Center at Donaldson’s prescribed fire program. Pictured are Howard Conner, Adam Thada, and Joe Skelton.

Here’s a guest post by Cheri Ringer, Coordinator of Earthcare Education at Earthworks.

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Are your children spending too much time with technology? Do your children give you a quizzical look when you suggest that they play outside? If so, Earthworks Summer Day Camp is the perfect place for your children to disconnect from technology and learn about our interconnectedness with all of creation. Earthworks Summer Day Camps are designed for children ages 6-10. We use Project Wild and Project Growing up Wild curriculum, created by the United States Department of Natural Resources. (The curriculum is designed to support state and national educational standards for grades K-12, but don’t tell your children 😊). Weekly day camps run Monday thru Friday from 9am until 3pm. Each day is filled with fun activities, all related to nature. We begin the day with music, then proceed with exploring the variety of habitats on campus, art and nature related games. Earthworks provides two snacks and children bring their own lunch. Residents from Maria Center, an independent living community on campus, join the children twice a week for intergenerational activities. An example of the exploring we do each week include a visit to the farm and greenhouse, fishing, hikes through the woods & prairie and a favorite is “kids playing with kids” (of the goat variety). Art experiences either use or are inspired by our natural surroundings.

The Summer Day Camp staff includes Libby McEntee and Xena Newland. Libby is a graduating senior of Knox High School planning to attend IU Bloomington to study molecular biology in the fall. This is Libby’s second year working with the program and she also attended the camp as a child. Xena is an Ancilla College graduate planning to continue her education at IUSB in the fall. Xena is working to become a teacher with a focus on Special Education.

We invite you to enroll your child(ren) in one or more of our six weeks of day camp. Please register online at http://earthworksonline.org/summer-program.html . The cost is $150 per week with a 10% discount for additional siblings. Before and after childcare is available upon request. Scholarships are available for up to 50% of the cost of camp. Earthworks day camp provides a safe environment for children to explore nature.

For additional information, call Earthworks at 574.935.4164 or email Cheri Ringer, Coordinator of Earthcare Education at cringer@poorhandmaids.org

#1… our first Monarch! I saw this individual on May 23, plunging down in the tall grass, which allowed me to sneak up close. Monarchs, of course, are just one species of many that have a spectacular migratory journal. This individual probably emerged somewhere in Texas and flew up here.

(I’ll write a post later about how to distinguish the Monarch from it’s mimic, the Viceroy… I had to go brush up on my notes with this one!).

According to Journey North, the first Monarchs were reported in northern Indiana around late April to early May. With each successive generation (there are several throughout the growing season), the population increases and become more visible to humans who happen to catch them flitting about.

#2… our first solar array! Yesterday, the crew from Ag Technologies dropped off some equipment and will start construction this week. It’s been a long road (almost like… an exhausting migration?), but here we finally are… Phase 1 of our exploration into renewable energy. See the press release here.