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Author Topic: Going Green (as much as possible) Bill Enos Film God Posts: 2081 From: Richmond, Virginia, USA Registered: Apr 2000 posted 10-21-2007 09:12 PM                     We've had a couple people ask why we don't use solar power at the theatre. So how large a solar array would it take to power our two 3k proj. lamps, 100 ton a/c (225 amps at med power, 25 hp blower, 90 amps house lights. Forget everything else. Biggest issue is that we're mostly open at night. After hurricane Isabel the power was out for 7 days, one of our customers offered the use of his 3.5kw generator.  |  IP: Logged David Stambaugh Film God Posts: 4021 From: Eugene, Oregon Registered: Jan 2002 posted 10-21-2007 09:35 PM                        The idea isn't to have enough panels to power everything. You'd be reducing your overall power bill, though it might take years to recoup the cost of the panels etc. unless you live in a state or city offering big tax incentives for installing the panels. So Bill, you find it more satisfying to have your waste go to the landfill rather than making an effort to recycle? (I'm just asking )  |  IP: Logged Chris Slycord Film God Posts: 2986 From: 청주시, 경북도, South Korea Registered: Mar 2007 posted 10-22-2007 02:32 AM                     If you're trying to have electricity and "go green" try checking with your power company to see if they offer any plans that only are generated with renewable sources. My personal electricity plan is like that.  |  IP: Logged Mike Williams Master Film Handler Posts: 255 From: Knoxville, TN Registered: Feb 2002 posted 10-22-2007 06:33 AM                     quote: Chris Slycord If you're trying to have electricity and "go green" try checking with your power company to see if they offer any plans that only are generated with renewable sources. While green power is a noble concept, it costs more in most places. If I am running a business, especially one that has a large electric bill like a movie theater, I would want to lower that cost as much as possible. Selling electricity back to the grid during the day seems logical. Many of the solar power systems have dropped in price considerable over the last 5 years - enough to where payback can be seen within a year or two. In CA, there are even huge tax breaks for installing a system like this.  |  IP: Logged Bill Enos Film God Posts: 2081 From: Richmond, Virginia, USA Registered: Apr 2000 posted 10-22-2007 03:45 PM                     David, I could give a shit less where it goes as long as it doesn't cost me anything in cash or inconvenience. "Green" is fine with me with those two conditions as well a paying me for that which is turned into useful products. The economics is what is missing from the whole "Green" plan. It just isn't economically practical.  |  IP: Logged Lindsay Morris Expert Film Handler Posts: 233 From: Darlington, WA, Australia Registered: Sep 2002 posted 10-24-2007 05:39 AM                     I encourage recycling at the outdoor cinema as patrons are able to bring their own wine/beer etc and consume prior to the movie.. or as some do... keep going during the movie going by the stuff left under the deckies after each session. I have 3 bins each at Entry foyer and Exit gate labelled "Glass", "Aluminium Cans" & "Rubbish". Has taken a while to get the culture going but they are pretty well trained now and generally do the right thing. Has made a huge difference to what I have to lift up onto the ute to cart away to transfer station....a heap of wine bottles in a 70Litre garbage bin bag is bloody heavy and almost always would tear the thing then I got more mess to clean up. Have to sort bottles into colors here and for that I keep a couple of bins handy and just trawl thru the bin sorting as I go and when the bins are full off they go to tranfer station. Ali cans are pretty easy and light to handle.. just gotta keep and eye on what patrons "think" are ali cans. Just this little bit of recycling may have increased my time I spend cleaning BUT it sure helps me avoid a busted back so I am happy doing it that way... got a few rabid greenie types for patrons who think it is marvellous but have no idea of why I started doing it this way As to solar power for a cinema .... yikes.... no bloody way. Even my conservative setup of a single screen outdoors so no A/Con for patrons has a consumption of 2100 KWH for just 5 months operation. In a previous house I had a solar backup power system as the supply was VERY unreliable. The whole place was single phase and I had a 2.5KW continuos/6 KW peak inverter taking 50V DC to 250V AC at 50HZ. A bank of 2 X 200ah batteries charged by 8 solar panels on the roof which had a peak DC output of around 8 amps in good bright/cool conditions. The power supplied by those and stored by the system was enough to run a 220 Litre freezer continuosly (in its normal on/off cycle that is)if the mains were off for more than 6 hours. That freezer completely consumed the total KWH input available from the sun... I think it consumed 1.75KWH per day. I would need zillions of panels to just run my little show plus I would need a 3 phase inverter and those do not come cheap I have had a few nights where we have lost power mid show or just prior and usually due to lightning and I looked at a standby plant once and decided it had to be at minimum a 15KVA 3 phase but the sums did not stack up to get one for the amount of use it would ever get. My biggest concern when power goes out is keeping enough light about to move people out safely and keep some form of air cooling going on that almost white hot Xenon lamp. Almost always the time the power dies is when it is stinking hot after a 40C plus day and the storms build up so the bio box is rather warm as there is normally no need for A/Con in there. A solar plant for a 3 screen complex would be massive and I guess it would have to be Interactive IE feed into the mains as I doubt that most would not want to look after batteries let alone buy them in the first place. I know one 4 screen complex that has a 250KW standby diesel genset that comes on in 8 seconds and runs the entire complex A/con and all... is a madhouse when the mains blip though as getting those 4 screens back up again can be fun Lindsay  |  IP: Logged Mike Williams Master Film Handler Posts: 255 From: Knoxville, TN Registered: Feb 2002 posted 10-24-2007 06:21 AM                     quote: Lindsay Morris A solar plant for a 3 screen complex would be massive and I guess it would have to be Interactive IE feed into the mains as I doubt that most would not want to look after batteries let alone buy them in the first place. I think many people are missing the point about solar. The idea is not to run the complex off of it. The idea is to make a $5000 a month electric bill more like $3000 a month since you can sell electricity back to the power company during the day when there is sunlight. No batteries involved. Just a "grid tied" system. What makes it economical is theaters typically have 1) Large roofs (where you can place panels) 2) High electricity bills Here is a website that expains the concept much better.  |  IP: Logged Chad Souder Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 962 From: Waterloo, IA, USA Registered: Feb 2000 posted 10-24-2007 07:12 PM                     Nuclear power would end all these problems but people are too afraid about the possibility of an accident or what to do with the waste. That's what Missouri is for.  |  IP: Logged Lindsay Morris Expert Film Handler Posts: 233 From: Darlington, WA, Australia Registered: Sep 2002 posted 10-25-2007 03:58 AM                     Mike, I had a look at that website and then ran the figures to suit my little outdoor cinema where I average 420KWH per month. If I wanted to generate a solar component about equal to that consumption for the summer and then leave going thru the winter to further increase my "credits" from the power utility I would have to size a plant at about 3KW output. A school where my daughter works has just installed a 1KW unit at a cost of Aus$22,000 and a call to a friend of mine who does solar installations re a 3KW unit??? he came up with Aus$46,000 in rough figures. These are interactive or as you call it there "grid tied" (no batteries). My power bill for the entire 5 month season is under Aus$400 and thus would take me around 10 years to recover my costs. The power untilities here do not buy power back at the same rate they charge it out to you either... they only give you about 60% of what they charge. By far the biggest cost component is the solar panels themselves and until they come down in price dramatically solar is going to continue to struggle. One way to increase your solar panel output is to install a tracker that follows the sun across the sky... very effective and can add a further 30% to your total solar output for the day. I have 3 solar panels on my little motor home, the fridge is a small compressor unit on 12Volt and we can free camp for around 5 days with the solar panels supplying our entire lighting, entertainment and refrigeration needs and NOT have to run the motor. I love that setup as LPG for fridges is a pain and quite expensive away from the bigger centres and there is no way that a LPG fridge can compete in terms of "cold" efficiency with the new compressor type units. My "green" contribution is simply going to be recycle as much of the cinema waste as possible, recycle my printed programs that are not used by patrons to do all my office printing on unless it is going to leave the office area. Compact flouros are used wherever I can utilise one and some of those have been going just on 12 years and beat the pants off the filament type lamps for life and consumption. I have even recycled both sets of projectors to date and am in the process of now recycling a glass slide projector with a xenon lamp to replace the existing carbon arc lamp illuminated one. Am not a subscriber to the current thinking of consume at all costs that this current society seems obsessed with. I think if we all did our little bit it would make a huge difference overall. But we gotta change the thinking of the Govts of this world... a classic example of that woolly type thinking was the University Of NSW solar cell design which increased it's efficiency quite a lot. The inventor could not get funding grants from our dopey Govt to further develop and market them from Aust so it was sold overseas to Germany. All the jobs and the $$$'s have gone there and the German company is now exporting the panels back to Aust Lindsay  |  IP: Logged Chris Slycord Film God Posts: 2986 From: 청주시, 경북도, South Korea Registered: Mar 2007 posted 10-25-2007 10:06 AM                     Lindsay, You ignored what he said for part of it then suddenly started paying attention to it again. The point was NOT to run your entire system off of solar it was to use solar to lower your bill. So you could right now buy some solar panels and your bill will go down. Then in the future when they're cheaper, either buy more or buy better replacements. But you by no means have to buy one large enough to run your entire setup.  |  IP: Logged Bill Enos Film God Posts: 2081 From: Richmond, Virginia, USA Registered: Apr 2000 posted 10-25-2007 12:31 PM                     I just did a little poking around and found a 3600 watt solar system installed complete with panels, inverter for providing a/c to the grid from the d/c from the panels, all the necessary switching along with installation of same including 1 year guarantee on equipment and installation. $32,500. At the approx. residential rate, if this thing put out max 24/7 it would take 10.3 years for it to earn its cost. Splitting the day 50/50 between zero out and max we're up to 20 years. What actual max sun hours would be in your area would vary  |  IP: Logged Mike Williams Master Film Handler Posts: 255 From: Knoxville, TN Registered: Feb 2002 posted 10-25-2007 12:37 PM                     Granted, it may not make sense for every area. In places like CA, where the electicity cost is 2 or 3x what we pay in the east, coupled with government incentives, there may be a faster payback.  |  IP: Logged

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