Our Products

Energy Audits

An energy audit is the first step in understanding your buildings energy usage and the efficiency of its systems and components.

A basic energy audit is conducted with every onsite consultation for any renewable energy system. We evaluate your energy usage based on 12 or 24 months worth of utilities and assess your energy needs for all resources, gas, electric and water.

An extensive energy audit is the next step. It is a service where the energy efficiency of a house is evaluated by a person using professional equipment (such as blower doors and infra-red cameras), with the aim of identifying the best ways to improve energy efficiency in heating and cooling the building. Theses audits are conducted by an auditor accredited by the Building Performance Institute (BPI). Our clients are presented with a written report that will pinpoint the building’s current problem areas, and signify immediate short term, medium, and long term recommendations. Upon request, we can present our client with a number solutions and estimates of implementation costs. This would provide our client with the information necessary to make sound investment decisions.

Energy Star

We are proud to provide rating services to qualify new and existing buildings for the ENERGY STAR® label. ENERGY STAR qualified buildings are substantially more energy efficient when compared to homes and buildings built to current minimum code requirements. Even in states with more rigorous energy codes, the U.S. EPA ensures that ENERGY STAR remains the symbol for truly energy-efficient performance. ENERGY STAR ratings are good for businesses, consumers, and the environment.

Energy Star, is a voluntary program started by the EPA in 1992. Its goal has been to curb energy consumption, and greenhouse gas emissions. While originally the program included electronics and appliances that consume energy, in 1995 it was expanded to residential heating and cooling systems as well as new homes. Today this program has flourished, and in 2006 about 12 percent of new housing was labeled as meeting with Energy Star requirements.

The EPA has developed a great tool for the Energy Star rating. It is an online portfolio manager that can be used by owners, managers, or reality companies and investors. It is a very straight forward and helpful tool, even if you are not striving for the Energy Star rating. The Portfolio Manager helps you in these departments:

  • Manage Energy and Water Consumption for all Buildings
  • Rate Building Energy Performance
  • Estimate Your Carbon Footprint
  • Set Investment Priorities
  • Verify and Track Progress of Improvement Projects
  • Gain EPA Recognition

It helps to identify inefficiencies in buildings, by comparing them to national standards and other buildings. It can also be used to see which improvements yield the best returns, by monitoring how your buildings performance fluctuates using different improvements. Today in its full form, Energy Star has its rating system tailored, depending on the type of the building and its use. The following types of buildings can obtain the Energy Star rating:

  • Banks and Financial Institutions
  • Courthouses
  • Hospitals
  • Hotels
  • Houses of Worship
  • K-12 Schools
  • Medical Offices
  • Municipal Offices
  • Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plants
  • Office
  • Residence Halls / Dormitories
  • Retail Stores
  • Supermarkets
  • Warehouses

Every four years the EPA conducts a survey of a large pool of buildings and gets its performance numbers for each type of a building. The rating system is on a scale of 1-100. It is important to understand that your building is being rated against other peer building throughout the US, not other buildings in the Portfolio Manager. If you get a score of 50, that means your building performs better than 50% of all similar buildings nationwide. In order to get the Energy Star label, you will need 75 points. These points are solely based on reduction in consumption.

Concentrated Solar Photovoltaic

Eco-Solar Solutions, Inc. is now partnering with distributor/manufacturer, Sun Harvest Solutions, LLC in order to offer a superior concentrated solar technology, the SunCube. This amazing solar appliance outperforms all other solar technologies that are currently available on the world market.

The SunCube uses triple junction solar cells that have an efficiency of 39%. These solar cells were originally developed for the space program as well as for the military. Since their inception, they have completely dominated solar usage in space. Today we have the capability to field this technology here on Earth. SunCubes use approximately 9 square centimeters (1.4 sq in) of these triple junction solar cells coupled with Fresnal lenses. The lenses maximize the output of the cells by concentrating the Sun with a ratio of 500:1. A certain amount of heat is the byproduct of this process, so the SunCube uses the entire casing as a heat sink in order to dissipate any and all excessive heat. The end result is an increase in operating temperature of only 10 degrees Celsius (50 F) above ambient.

The SunCube as a system achieves a 31.0% STC efficiency using all of the above technology. Currently standard solar photovoltaic modules available on the market achieve only 18% by comparison (a difference of almost double). To put this in perspective, you would need an area twice the size of standard solar PV to produce the same kWh output as our SunCube. Furthermore, the SunCube achieves 66% less of a dynamic load, and 50% less of a static load when compared to standard solar PV. This means that the SunCube can be placed on many more rooftops without any necessary structural improvements, compared with standard solar PV. Currently, dual axis trackers cannot be used on rooftops for standard solar panel installations, with the exception being for use with SunCubes.

SunCubes are primarily designed to be used for both flat roof, and ground mounted applications. This makes the SunCube a prime competitor for commercial and industrial scale projects. Additionally, the daily production curve of the SunCube is much flatter, which alleviates spiking of production that destabilizes the grid. This makes our SunCube the perfect solution for solar farms.

Mono and Poly-Crystalline flat photovoltaic panels

Photovoltaic solar panels are created in two forms: mono-crystalline and poly-crystalline. Mono-crystalline, or single crystal solar panels, are manufactured through the Czochralski process where the crystals are grown. The silicon crystal ingots created for the photovoltaic solar panels through this process are cut into thin slices using a wire saw. Using these silicon crystal ingots, conductive wires are screened onto their surface. This comprises a photovoltaic solar panel. Mono-crystalline cells, although more expensive, are much more efficient than poly-crystalline photovoltaic solar panels. Due to their higher efficiency, they are best suited for installation where the square footage of the installation area is the limiting factor, not the actual cost.

Poly-crystalline, are solar panels with multiple crystals which start with molten silicon. The silicon is cut from a buole. The shapes that are cut are grown and connected with conductive wires. Poly-crystalline photovoltaic solar panels offer a lower efficiency than mono-crystalline solar panels. Typically, homeowners purchase poly-crystalline cells because they are cheaper than mono-crystalline photovoltaic solar panels.

More importantly then choosing between mono or poly-crystalline modules, is choosing a quality brand. Solar panels are rated using Standard Testing Conditions (knows as “STC rating”, aka “name plate”) by flashing 1,000 watts per square meter of solar irradiance, 1.5 Air Mass at 25 degrees C (77 F) of ambient temperature in closed quarters in a laboratory. All solar panels perform differently in outside conditions. The only difference between different brands of panels is how much the performance degrades when they are exposed to real conditions. There is a “PTC” rating that was developed at University of Davis, California. PTC stands for “PV USA Test Conditions”. The solar panel is exposed to 1,000 watts per square meter of solar irradiance, 1.5 Air Mass at 20 degrees C (68 F) of ambient temperature at 10 meters (32.8 ft) above ground level and wind speed of 1 meter per second (2.24 mph). The PTC rating, which is lower than the STC rating, is generally recognized as a more realistic measure of PV output because the test conditions better reflect “real-world” solar and climatic conditions, compared to the STC rating.