Electric vehicles have been in the news more lately, as car manufacturers from Mitsubishi to Ford introduce new models. How is this working out — what are EVs doing for us?

New findings are emerging to answer that question.

The EV Project conducted by ECOtality has been collecting data in the United States since October 2009. The results from over 24 million miles driven by EVs:

• EVs in the U.S. have saved about 1 million gallons of gas from being used.
• Those same EVs have prevented about 8,700 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions from entering the atmosphere.

As 100,000 more miles are driven every day by the thousands of EVs in the study, these numbers continue to rise.

You may be wondering, What can a condo dweller do to participate in this? Unless your condo is very new, chances are there’s no easy way to get an EV charger in your parking spot. Often, extensive — and expensive — rewiring is required.

New options are appearing, though, to fill this need. In San Francisco, EverCharge provides a solution for apartments and condos.

If you live in San Francisco, you can attend a presentation to learn more about such options this Sunday, May 6. To RSVP and get more information, please contact me.

And if you don’t live here, don’t despair. More companies like this one are likely to come on the scene before long, allowing condo dwellers to participate in the new wave of electric vehicles.

Good news for anyone contemplating installing solar: Studies like this one are showing that homes with solar are selling at higher prices. While this study focused on California, even an international organization of real estate appraisers has acknowledged the need to value buildings differently based on green improvements.

And green real estate companies are finding that installing solar can not only boost the sale price of a home but also help it sell up to 20% more quickly.

All this, coupled with lowered energy bills, is making solar more attractive to single-family home owners. Let’s hope the trend will help further condos going solar, too.

Many residents of multifamily buildings would like to purchase an electric vehicle but have no way to charge it at their home. In San Francisco, a program available in December and January can help multifamily buildings get EV chargers — free of charge! To find out more, sign up for a free workshop.

Workshop dates:

• Monday 12 December, 2:00 pm – 4:30 pm
• Thursday 15 December, 5:00 pm – 7:30 pm

Who should attend:

• Building owners
• HOA members
• Apartment managers
• Brokers & realtors who work with multifamily clients
• EV owners who reside in multifamily buildings
• Anyone interested in making EV charging convenient, attracting buyers or tenants, and increasing the value of their property

Participation requirements

• Multifamily buildings must be located within the City and County of San Francisco.
• One application per location, but can apply for multiple chargers (up to 2 chargers or 3% of parking spaces, whichever is greater).
• Applicant must be property owner or agent (e.g. property manager, HOA representative, etc.).
• Building must have at least three (3) residential units.
• Must have dedicated parking locations that will ensure safe utilization of charging stations.
• Must be willing to allow collection of charging data through December 31, 2013.
• Must be willing to participate in a short follow-up survey within a year after installation of the charger.
• Must complete and submit MultiCharge SF Application no later than February 1, 2012.

This demonstration project is being funded by the California Energy Commission as a component of Coulomb Technologies’ ChargePoint California. SF Environment (SFE) is administering this project as a part of its MultiCharge SF initiative, which helps residents of multifamily buildings make the move to electric cars. Implementation of the demonstration project is a collaborative effort by Coulomb Technologies, SFE, PG&E, the San Francisco Clean Cities Coalition, and the California Energy Commission.

For further information and to download application materials, visit www.sfenvironment.org/multichargesf. Questions? Email multichargesf@sfenvironment.org.

I hope we’ll see many programs like this all around the U.S.!

Community Solar Day was a big success all over the world.

I had my own gathering in San Francisco, where we discussed solar options for condo dwellers and others who can’t easily get solar. For more, see my blog post about the event.

Yes we can get solar to all! Even to condo dwellers.

Many of the houses near our condo have solar on their roofs -- we hope to get it on ours, too.

Going solar can be challenging for those of us who live in condos.

But options are emerging. In some states, for example, people can subscribe to solar power from a common array called a solar garden, supplying their homes through the existing power grid. This is one way condo dwellers can get solar power.

You can learn more about solar gardens and other community solar options at Community Solar Day, a worldwide Meetup sponsored by, among others, Solar Mosaic, Vote Solar, Community Power Network, the Solar Panel Hosting Company, and the Solar Gardens Institute to kick-start solar projects in people’s communities.

For information and to register, go to the Community Solar Day meetup site. And to learn about becoming a solar gardener — the community organizer/project manager who makes a solar garden happen – you can attend online training that same day. To register, contact training@solargardens.org (see details at the solar gardener training meetup page).

Together, we can help get solar to everyone in our communities!

It can be confusing to navigate the many options out there for green cleaning — and how can you tell how green all the commercial cleaners really are? Some resources are available to help with this. If you want to keep it really simple, though, you need look no further than your own kitchen.

It turns out that vinegar, especially of the distilled white and apple cider varieties, can be used for a lot more than cooking. It’s not only affordable but also an effective green cleaner.

Vinegar can be used by itself or mixed with water and other household materials to clean shelves and refrigerator walls, porcelain sinks, chrome, floors, and more. For details, see 20 unusual uses for vinegar.

As that article details, vinegar can do all these without using the toxins found in many items you’d normally use for the same tasks:

• Condition hair
• Kill weeds
• Remove stains
• Soften fabrics
• Deter ants
• Freshen air
• Remove stickers
• Dissolve rust
• And much more!

When it comes to lighting, there are more options than ever. But how are you to decide which is the best for you?

You can check out our Lighting page for more details on incandescents, compact fluorescents (CLFs), and LEDs — and of course, what’s right for you depends on your budget and the quality of lighting you prefer. My own feeling is that LEDs are becoming a viable and attractive option. And I’ve been able to persuade our condo board to approve a gradual switch to LEDs in our public areas.

LED bulbs for home use are becoming more widely available. Though they cost more than other bulbs, their long life and high energy efficiency should more than make up for the initial up-front cost, as shown in this chart one of our forum members put together:

Prices are expected to drop in the next couple years — but as this chart shows, if you don’t want to wait, LED lights can be a good option even now. To determine whether they’re right for your condo, you might want to check out this Green Tech article, which gives a good cost-benefit analysis.

A recent study warns of toxic components in LED lights, but the study was done on smaller lights such as those found in Christmas decorations and flashlights. A study on larger lights is expected out soon. And some have been questioning the safety of CFLs, another popular energy-saving option — which may make LEDs even more appealing.

For a look into the future, this fascinating article discusses LEDs in relation to current and futuristic options.

A $15 LED bulb is coming soon, but it’s wise to remember that you may get what you pay for, and to do some research to determine which are the best bulbs to buy. You might check out reviews of LED bulbs written by users with no interest in selling anything. When we share information like this, we all benefit.

Good news for anyone wanting to make costly energy-efficiency and renewable-energy improvements to their home: PACE programs may be coming back!

These programs allow homeowners to finance solar and other energy-efficiency improvements through loans that are paid back as part of owners’ property taxes, making them tax-deductible and spreading the costs out over time. All of this makes going green much more affordable. Although these programs are much easier to adopt for a single-family homeowner, my condo complex in San Francisco was looking into this option as a possible way to finance green initiatives — till most of the programs were put on hold last year. At the time, Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac insisted the programs were too risky.

Since then, some municipalities have continued to implement PACE programs. That’s shown that not only are the programs not risky, but because they ease financial burdens by lowering the cost of living, they actually result in far fewer defaults than the national average.

So now, as The Vote Solar Initiative reports, Congress is about to introduce bipartisan legislation to reinstate PACE programs. We need to ensure this legislation passes! You can help by contacting your congressperson — more information is on the PACE Now and Vote Solar Initiative action pages.

A condo complex in San Jose, California is showing that solar thermal can be a good option for condos.

Craig Gorewitz, the property manager of The Tradewinds, didn’t start with the aim of being green. He was looking for a way to save money on heating the average of 10,000 gallons of water used daily by the large complex. And he found that switching to solar thermal would save as much as 60% of that cost.

What made this possible is a new solar water heating incentive program in California, the California Solar Initiative (CSI) Thermal Program — as well as Gorewitz’s persuasiveness. He showed the homeowners how much would be saved by moving to solar thermal, and he convinced them to vote overwhelmingly to borrow from the association’s reserves to cover the portion of the initial costs not covered by the CSI. Gorewitz estimated that it would take only a couple years to replace the funds in the reserves, because the system would save so much money. He got help navigating the process from Free Hot Water, a San-Jose based manufacturer and distributor of solar thermal products. Together, they’re embarking on California’s largest multi-unit solar water heating project.

The Tradewinds solar thermal project shows how crucial it is for states to implement incentive programs like California’s CSI. Without that, this project would not have been possible.

And the project is a great example of how we can work together to green our condos, and of how economical being green can be. Although Gorewitz didn’t begin with the goal of being more sustainable, he’s now proud to be bringing renewable energy to the Tradewinds, in addition to saving the owners thousands of dollars. And even more important, he’s shown others how it can be done, so more of us can follow suit.

Green America has just announced a new service for its members: a “green help desk,” Ask Green America. You may want to consider signing up to avail yourself of this and other membership benefits.

Green America says that their new green help desk has more than 1,000 answers to your green living questions, and they’re adding more tips and advice every day on greening our homes, lifestyles, and businesses.

For example, you can find out what chemicals to avoid in your cleaning products, how to calculate your at-home water usage, or what kinds of indoor plants can best purify your air quality.

And they say that if you have a question about living more sustainably that’s not yet in their database, they’ll answer it.

For more, go to Ask Green America.