Page 153 - Solar Power in Building Design The Engineer's Complete Design Resource

EXAMPLE OF TYPICAL SOLAR POWER SYSTEM DESIGN 123

Figure 5.4 The Heavenly Retreat project (interior view). Photo courtesy
of Mr. Joel Goldblatt, New Mexico, United States.

Using these studies of the sun, moon, and planetary alignments, as well as build-
ing with adobe, heavy beam, and recyclable product construction and insulation, the
home is a tribute to its environment. Being embedded into the forest floor it rises with
three terraced stories to a meditation room with a pyramid skylight and a geodesic
dome garage. It produces its own solar electricity (3.6 kW) and solar thermal heating
(180,000 Btu/h) for 10 zones of hydronic radiant floor heating. It includes three year-
round producing greenhouses and an organically cultivated summer garden. Stepping
outdoors from one of three patios, trails go off into the forest with over 50 acres of
alpine forest and meadows, sharing the forest with deer, elk, and many other animals.
The home was completed in 2002. It is being further refined and developed to serve as
a spiritual retreat for guests, offering meditation and seminars in solar design and
construction.
The owner, who is also a designer of the project, spent many years contemplating
about the project and undertook special design efforts and planning to honor and
respect the building’s surrounding environment. The project was not designed to be
just a sustainable energy design installation project but rather a holistic environmental
design that could unite technology and ecology.
The sustainable energy system is configured by the deployment of 11 solar thermal
panels with a control system that augments water heating by use of a supplemental
propane boiler. The heated water is the primary heat source, which provides space
heating as well as a domestic hot water (DHW) system. At present the solar thermal
system accounts for about 60 to 70 percent of the heat, thus reducing propane use by
about 40 to 50 percent.