Expert: Cary Simmons - 8/6/2011

Question
i'm a student in Malaysia competing to design a chalet in the fruit orchard of the client. According to the client, there's no electricity or water pipes. There are only fruit trees, a stream and 3 ponds. He wanted the chalets 2 be low cost.

This project require me and my team mates to design 4 chalets and a community centre. solar power homes are expensive. And the chalets has 2 be green. what are other alternatives other than installing pv?

Answer
Yvonne:

Your question is an excellent one and your project seems challenging and timely, but "green" design is not an area in which I profess particular expertise.   My response is therefore, lacking in specifics.  

That said, let's look at the assets of your site.  Composting vegetation, such as fruit, releases energy, most apparently in the form of heat.  Water in motion has the potential to be harnessed to either operate equipment, produce hydraulic or electrical energy or to compress air, as a stream or as engineered drop between ponds.  Standing water, as in ponds, is constantly evaporating, which, with careful siting, can account for some cooling.  The sum of the site's assets might be deployed to funnel and harness wind, create more biomass, extract heat from geothermal wells, increase the amount of water in motion or water in ponds or compost waste to advantage.  And lastly, there always exists the potential to create designs that require minimal energy.  

You asked specifically for alternatives to solar, but it should not be discounted entirely.  With increased demand, manufacturing costs are dropping and the forms in which conventional and thin-film solar elements are becoming available are rapidly increasing the ways in which they can be incorporated at appreciable scales.

I wish success to you and your team in this project and in your future endeavors.