Finding Entrepreneurial Spirit at the Michigan Energy Fair

Saturday I headed to the Manistee County Fairgrounds in Onekama, about an hour and a half south of Traverse City, to check out the Michigan Energy Fair 2009, organized by the Great Lakes Renewable Energy Association.

The fair, in its fourth year, is a gathering of what might be called technological optimists, people selling and buying and learning about ways we can reduce our energy use and carbon footprint: solar hot water heaters, solar photo voltaic roof shingles, windmill towers, services that check the wind potential of a site, big power companies like Consumers Energy and Duke, energy-efficient home builders, a hybrid bus manufacturer and on and on and on. The attendee figures aren’t available yet for this year’s fair, but last year drew about 4,000 plus more than 100 exhibitors. In talking with a number of the vendors, I got a general consensus that this year’s attendee and exhibitor numbers were down a bit, but that the people who showed up were more serious about buying. “There are a lot fewer tire kickers,” said Yvonne Dotson, who along with her husband owns Solar Works LLC, which focuses, as you might imagine, on solar power solutions for homeowners.

Dotson and I sat for a while in the shade of her tent while a few feet away, her 10-by-8-foot solar panel soaked up the sun and turned it into electricity that powered a little waterfall pond. For those thinking alternative energy is a get-rich quick thing, know that Dotson and her husband have been at this a few years and both still work full-time jobs. One recent demonstration that she enjoyed: the solar panel we sat by was used to power bands at a recent concert. We need more of that kind of pop culture application of renewable energy to really get the word out on what it can do.

At another booth, I met Chris VanSpronsen, of New Energy Solutions, from Grand Rapids. He joined the ranks of renewable energy entrepreneurs in February 2009. He's an electrical contractor, and with the construction market in decline, he saw the need to diversify. VanSpronsen and some partners formed a renewable energy consulting and installation firm, and already 25 percent of his business is coming from homeowners wanting to shrink their electrical use and increase their use of renewable energy. By taking a consulting approach, the company is not tied to any single technology, which allows them to evolve with the technology and recommend the best solution for any specific individual, he explained. A typical solution involves something like first shrinking the use of electricity by going to low-energy appliances and then hooking up some kind of solar photo voltaic, typically a 2 kilowatt system that ties straight to the grid (meaning no battery storage). In this system, the home is powered first and then if there’s excess electricity being produced, it goes out to the grid, and a power company compensates the homeowner for the electricity.

Multiply Dotson’s and VanSpronsen’s tales by a hundred and you get a sense for the dreams alive at the fair.

The fair also ran a robust slate of concurrent sessions in five big tents outdoors, with topics ranging from low-energy landscaping ideas (where I learned about grass that grows well here, needs very little water and only grows to 6 inches high, so you don’t even really have to mow it. It’s called Eco Turf, by the way.) The most crowded sessions tended to deal with money, as in how to get government money to help finance a project. Guess that shouldn’t be surprising.

One of the most fascinating presentations didn’t have much direct relevance here, but was a remarkable example of what can be accomplished with some ingenuity. John Barrie from Appropriate Technology Collaborative described a solar-powered refrigerator his group invented for remote areas of Africa. He explained that half of vaccines go bad there because areas lack refrigeration. So his crew figured a way to build a small solar powered refrigerator for $400. The alternative he said would be a traditional refrigerator at $1,200 plus the never-ending cost of fuel.

At the evening banquet (pork barbeque and Short’s beer served by Benzie caterer Jim Barnes), Representative Dan Scripps talked about the imperative that Michigan must not rest on its laurels with the recent state energy bill requiring 10 percent of the state’s energy be renewable by 2015. “If we are to truly be a leader in this area, we must do much more,” he said.

Oh yeah, and afterward, the New North Coast played music into the night.

If you are reading this on Sunday, June 28, you still have time to swing over to Onekama, where the event runs until 4 p.m. $10 at the door.

Other stuff to do around Manistee and Onekama:
Shopping
Beach it
Mountain bike