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Solar Builder

Off-grid smart home developer Dvele explains its solar design strategy

Out of the ashes of the Ventura County, Calif., fires, new life comes from Dvele, the modern prefab smart home producer. Dvele employs a holistic building science practice that considers physics, biology and chemistry to ensure that its homes exceed third-party certifications for quality, health, and efficiency. The homes Dvele produces with its modular platform can be completed within six months, dramatically improving the timeframe from permitting to occupancy permit. This time savings helps reduce soft costs associated with construction, and easily improves one of the biggest barriers to new home ownership, time.

“Dvele is re-imagining the home buying and living experience, creating healthy and efficient homes that positively impact the lives of our clients,” according to Chief Innovation Officer, Brandon Weiss.

Pro Builder

How One Prefab Building Company Is Rebuilding Better in the Face of Disaster

The Thomas Fire in December 2017 burned nearly 282,000 acres in the California counties of Ventura and Santa Barbara. It reportedly destroyed 775 single-family homes and damaged another 200.

It was an ideal opportunity for Dvele, a three-year-old prefab home manufacturer, to showcase its first fire-resistant spec home under its California Wildfire Rebuild Initiative. Dubbed Skyview, the 2,280-square-foot single-level house, assembled on a burned-out lot, was built to wildfire mitigation standards set by San Diego county, which are considered tougher than the Wildland-Urban Interface Code that California follows, says Brandon Weiss, Dvele’s chief innovation officer.

The San Diego standard mandates such products as ember-resistant soffits (to keep fire detritus from getting inside the house), noncombustible siding, and dual-glazed R-20 windows. A rooftop solar array from Sunflare provides energy resilience. Skyview’s selling price was $1.4 million, including $550,000 in land costs.

BOAT

Stødig: How Two Architects Transformed a Ferry Lifeboat into a Home with Hygge

Architect Guylee Simmonds explains how he refitted a 100-person ferry lifeboat into a home with Hygge and embarked on a four-month trip to the Fjords with a dog called Shackleton.

Seven long years of architectural training were drawing to a close when friends Guylee Simmonds and David Schnabel began planning a celebratory hiking trip in Norway. “It was an escape for us from the mundane working life we were in,” Simmonds explains. “But then it grew in scale.”

The lightbulb moment came about after Simmonds found a small community of oil rig lifeboats that had been converted into house boats on the waterways of the UK. The fire was lit. Simmonds began considering buying and converting a commercial lifeboat and using it to travel 5000km to the Norwegian Arctic. To keep costs down, Simmonds and Schnabel would undertake the bulk of the refit work and approach sponsors to help fund the adventure. With the plan in place, all Simmonds had to do was persuade Schnabel. “I convinced him it was a good idea,” Simmonds says. “We had to work out the reality of finding a lifeboat, the particulars of the route, the safety and how we wanted to approach the design.”

Clean Technica

Sunflare Tapped To Supply Lightweight, Flexible Solar Panels For Israeli Landfill Installation

CleanTechnica met up with Sunflare Solar’s Chief Marketing Officer Elizabeth Sanderson, and Vice President of Commercial Business Development, Joshua Held at the 2019 Solar Power International in Salt Lake City, Utah to get the update on an exciting new 40 megawatt solar installation the firm has been tapped for.

The new installation at a retired landfill in Israel leverages Sunflare’s thin, lightweight solar panels to transform the otherwise unusable sloped surfaces of the landfill into an important part of a new on-site solar farm. Up at the top of the landfill mound, traditional ballasted fixed-tilt photovoltaic solar panels will complement the 40 MW Sunflare array

Alternative Energy HQ

The Unsinkable Solar Boat

It’s not a yellow submarine. But it can theoretically be submerged and remain unharmed. Why would such an attribute be necessary? In its former life, before two British architects, Guylee Simmonds and David Schnabel repurposed it, it was a lifeboat that could fit 100 people. Its original home was dangling off the side of a Scottish Ferry where it awaited its moment of glory as a savior.

But when it was decommissioned, Guylee and David had another vision for the boat. In its new life, it’s a houseboat, or more accurately, an adventure vessel that explores the high cliffs and deep waters of the Norwegian Artic, with all the comforts of home.

homesteadonomics | YouTube

How to Build a DIY Travel Trailer

Today I'm installing 370 watts of flexible solar panels on the DIY Travel Trailer Project! In the video I'll show how I ran the solar wiring, installed the flexible solar panels, made the charge controller / battery connections, and ran everything in the trailer off of just solar and battery power. This represents the last major step in the build to make the trailer off grid capable and usable for camping!

Hiconsumption

Upgrade Your Overlander With A Resilient Sunflare Flexible Solar Panel

Going on an off-grid adventure doesn’t mean you should abandon technology altogether. We live in the digital age, which means we should enhance our backcountry experience with tech to enjoy the best of both worlds. The Sunflare Flexible Solar Panel will help you power your gear up so you can fully-enjoy your stay in nature.

Clean Technica

Dolphin Boat Goes Hybrid With BMW i3 Batteries + Sunflare Panels

An operator of a custom dolphin observation boat has combined Sunflare solar panels with lithium-ion batteries for what may be the first charter vessel of it kind, says the Key West owner. Dubbed “The Squid,” the vessel was designed for tour operator Honest Eco by David Walworth, an MIT-educated boat designer and builder.

The vessel sports Squid has two BMW i3 batteries that weigh in at about 1200 pounds, while the 12 custom-sized modules produce 2000 watts of power and weigh only 120 pounds combined. Sunflare’s light, thin, and flexible CIGS panels have only one-quarter of the weight of traditional solar panels.

The owner says it’s the first of its kind plug-in, lithium ion battery-powered, hybrid charter boat with purely electric motors. Electricity is stored in the batteries, which can be recharged from shore power, the Sunflare panels, or a top EPA tier backup diesel motor.