Hot Water from the Sun!

A solar thermal demonstration project is underway at the Solaqua campus comparing two solar thermal collector technologies: flat plate and evacuated tubes solar thermal collectors.  The three arrays function side-by-side at the same height and angle and are monitored throughout the day. This system provides a substantial portion of the annual space heating  and domestic hot water requirements for the SunDog offices.  Federal tax credits and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) helped to fund this project.

The Greening of SunDog

In 2007 SunDog Solar invested $250,000 in the development of the first carbon-neutral 20,000 sq ft manufacturing and office facility in Columbia County.   Electricity is produced from the 127.6kW of photovoltaics installed throughout the site.

Heating with Vegetable Oil

Sundog has been heating our carbon neutral 20,000 sf building for three heating seasons with waste vegetable oil from restaurants.  Over 3 billion gallons of waste vegetable oil is produced annually in the US.  If we could collect all those gallons and use them to replace the energy equivalent of petroleum, almost 1% of conventional US oil consumption could be offset!

SunDog Solar, Solaqua Power & Art, and Peter Young Housing, Industries and Treatment (PYHIT) of Albany, NY are pleased to be working with Ginsberg Foods of Hudson, NY to offer used vegetable oil pick up service to their customers.  We have expanded into the Capital District and doubled our collection.  The oil-recycling program creates "Green Collar Jobs" as well as a domestically produced clean burning non-petroleum renewable fuel.  

Participating restaurants receive an Environmental Responsibility and Recycling Award certificate.  If you know of a restaurant that would like to participate in this program, please call us at 518-392-4000.

Cooling with the Sun!

Even though we live in the Northeast, the summers can get HOT!  Cooling is a necessity for most buildings but it’s very expensive.  In home air-conditioning is one of the reasons we get brown out’s and black out’s on the power grid in the summertime.  One way many businesses cool their buildings is through the use of chillers.  Chiller technology has been around for years.  It uses a heating cycle, created by fossil fuel, to create cooling (usually through an evaporative and condensing cycle).  SunDog is taking this idea one step further by driving the cooling cycle on a chiller with the heat produced by a solar concentrator and evacuated tubes.  “It just makes sense”, says Jody Rael, President of SunDog, “the summer is when you have greatest solar resource and you need the cooling the most.  Using solar energy, which is plentiful in the summer to run a cooling cycle is a logical choice.  When the winter comes, we can use what heat is collected to help heat our building.”  This project was made possible with a grant from the USDA.  This chiller will cool the offices of SunDog (about 4,000 square feet of space).

Update! The first summer (2013) with our chiller was a resounding success!  It was so refreshing to come in from the sweltering heat outside in July and August and feel the cool air coming in through our solar powered HVAC system!  

We lead by example!

greeningourfacility

sundog

343 Route 295

Chatham, NY 12037

T: 518.392.4000  F: 518.392.8191

info@sundogsolar.net

www.sundogsolar.com

sundog