San Leandro Solar Week – The Video!

By Office of Innovation
In Uncategorized
May 26th, 2015
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Thank you to everyone who participated in the first San Leandro Solar Week!

Over the course of 5 days, participants shared ideas that explored myriad aspects of renewable energy; from small ideas (various uses for thin-film solar voltaic panels) to the Big Idea of creating a renewable energy mesh grid network in San Leandro.  For highlights of San Leandro Solar Week, check out the vibrant video (link below) developed by Derick Lee of Pilot City.  This video showcases the community of Solar Week participants, our experiences and the potential for San Leandro.

 

SAN LEANDRO SOLAR WEEK

From April 29 – May 1, the City sponsored five days of solar-related events at the ZeroNet Energy Center.  We partnered with several local and global energy companies that showcased developing solar technologies for San Leandro to consider. In June 2006 the City adopted a resolution to reduce community wide emissions by 25 percent below 2005 levels by 2020.  Adopting alternative clean energy sources, particularly solar energy, is now considered a key resource to reaching this ambitious goal.

Solar Week

The weeks’ events offered creative ways to approach the cultivation of a renewable energy ecosystem. Some of the highlights include:

Cal Poly Solar Decathlon House Unveiling
SW CalPoly
Cal Poly Solar revealed their solar house design that will compete in this year’s U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathalon competition. The solar house project embodies the tools needed to design, build and operate solar-powered homes that are cost-effective, energy efficient and attractive. Mayor Cutter invited the Cal Poly team to consider permanent installation of the completed solar house right here in San Leandro, an invitation that we will explore over the next few months.

SfunCube Thin-Film Solar Design Hack
The SfunCube Thin-Film Solar Design Hackathon received over 250 submissions for Thin-Film Design Hack Competition inspired by the Hanergy Thin-Film Solar Product Global Innovation Competition. SfunCube was overwhelmed with the amount of innovative submissions and was particularly pleased with the turnout for its first San Leandro collaboration, which netted 25 submissions. Congratulations to the winners and their designs, especially to Team L.D.U. from San Leandro High School!

  • 1st Place: Alyssa Parr (Team Sol_Flex) – A thin-film integrated fabric that can be used for tents and canopies that utilizes elastic cables.
  • 2nd Place: Hoi-Fei Mok (Team Pure Water) – A mobile solar powered water treatment system.
    SW Winner

    Team I.D.U from San Leandro High School

  • 3rd Place & Young Entrepreneurial Award: Angelo Belenson, Artreau Sheppard, Romney Cola (Team L.D.U.) – Solar case, a transparent hard plastic cell phone case the charges your phone while protecting it.

Smart City & Smart Grid San Leandro Hack
The last two days of Solar Week focused on an open discussion of what it is to be a Smart City and how renewable energy fits into Smart City development.  Solar Week ended with a commitment from all parties to explore the development of a Smart Grid in San Leandro: the goal of this grid, powered by fiber optics, would be to retain excess energy created through renewable resources (solar, wind, etc.) within San Leandro.  At present, buildings like the Zero Net Energy Center in San Leandro, which creates more energy than it uses, simply donates this energy back into PG&E’s power grid.

The forum of community members, local businesses, City leaders and global guests explored the concepts of energy-internet, Grid of Things and innovation ecosystems.  This exploration ended with a commitment to pursue the development of a Smart Grid focused on key development projects: The Gate, the San Leandro Tech Campus and the Marina Shoreline development project.

It Takes a Community to Shine!

Thank you to Mayor Pauline Cutter, who kicked off the festivities with a Welcome on Wednesday evening and who joined us again on Sunday for the Smart Grid discussion; to Vice-Mayor Jim Prola who provided the welcome address at Saturday morning’s Smart City summit; and Councilmember Lee Thomas who also joined us Saturday morning; and Pilot City/Derick Lee, Zero Net Energy CenterOSIsoft, San Leandro Tech Campus/Westlake UrbanCal Poly San Luis ObispoSfunCubeSungevityEnel (Italy’s largest energy company), General Microgrids (“Smart Grids”), Olidata (“Smart Cities”) and to everyone who came from San Leandro and across the State of California and the World to participate.

Shine on!

 

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