INTRODUCTORY SPECIAL INTRODUCTORY ... - PHOTON Info

90
In Practice
System:
accomplished
The Elkus’ PV system started as a challenge
and ended in a safety code nightmare
Rick Elkus is self-admittedly attract-
ed to projects that tend to increase in
scale from the initial plan. Take, for
instance, the 3,000 gallon fish tank in
his backyard. But when the Elkus’s
decided to get a PV system installed,
the scope of the project went far
beyond anything they could have
imagined. And far beyond the small
town in which they live.
Poway is a small, wealthy southern
Californian city, just north of San Diego.
It’s a city of hot, dry summers, where
every few years a wildfire tears through
the surrounding brush, sending clouds of
deep gray smoke and ash into the air, and
threatening the houses in its sprawling
suburban neighborhoods. Daytime sum-
mer temperatures in Poway average about
90° Fahrenheit, and during a drought sea-
son dry offshore winds can turn the city
into a field of kindling.
Oddly enough, it’s also the home of
Rick Elkus, an amateur fly fisherman
and CFO of a small San Diego company,
who has built a backyard pond to breed,
and eventually help repopulate, the Cali-
fornia golden trout. The state freshwater
fish has been gradually fished and mis-
managed out of its habitat since the gold-
mining days. Native to snowmelts from
the High Sierra mountains, it can survive
My PV system
only in temperatures between 33 and 55°
Fahrenheit. In Poway’s climate, Elkus con-
sumes more than 2,000 kWh of electric-
ity each month to cool his pond. And the
electricity supply must be stable, even if
nearby fires knock out the grid. »I’ve got
some needs from a reliability standpoint,«
Elkus says. »If the fish get warm, they die.«
Combined with electricity to air condition
the family’s wide ranch-style house, the
Elkus’ consume close to 200 kWh a day
– a sum that, under the San Diego Gas &
Electric (SDG&E) tiered fee structure, costs
them nearly $2,000 a month.
That fits the scale of Elkus’ penchant
for big projects. »The inspiration started
off as this childhood dream,« Elkus says,
»which as usual, as you get older, expands
into this ridiculous fantasy that’s way out
of control.« It took him five years to build
and test the pond, which he built by hand,
before he was able to put in the ten golden
trout that are now visible through a thick
glass window – made by the same com-
pany that produces glass for Sea World in
San Diego. He says the fish have almost
doubled in size in the three years he’s had
them. In the bottom of the pond there is
a gravel pit, where the fish can spawn, and
a smaller pool above is reserved for hatch-
lings, when they arrive.
On the side of Elkus’ house, beside a
pathway that leads to the trout pond, is
the system that keeps it running. Yellow,
Rick Elkus spent five months negotiating with the
inspector to get his system built. His 70 panel, 14
kW system has been up and running since July.
November 2009