Jay Leno's Big Dog Garage needed $450,000+ to make it green
Starting in the middle of 2006, eco-celebrities like Ed Begley, Jr. finally got to gearhead Jay Leno. Leno, who's no stranger to AutoblogGreen, has had a rare car fetish for a long time. But, according to the L.A. Times, sometime last year, Leno decided to turn his attention to vehicles that were a little less aggressive to the environment. We've documented a lot of Leno's vehicular enjoyments on the site, but his Big Dog Garage hasn't been quite as common a presence.
The gist of the LA Times article is that Leno has put $450,000 worth of solar panels and a $19,000 wind turbine on his garage. This is admirable, but let me highlight three quotes found spread throughout the article.
First, the caption to the photo above, taken by LA TImes photographer Don Kelsen:
General Electric solar panels. Leno's 54-kilowatt system powers the lights, tools and air conditioning in his 17,000-square-foot garage, often generating enough extra energy that it feeds back to the grid.
Second, from the first page of the article:
At various points during our interview, he wandered into his office -- yes, his garage has an office, as well as a gourmet kitchen -- to see how many kilowatts were being generated.
"We're up to 33," Leno said, running his finger along the monitor. "The energy to power 40 homes. And it's not even peak."
And lastly, from the final page of the article:
... the [solar] panels cover 41% of the power consumed at his garage; 59% continues to come from Burbank Water and Power.
"Two-thirds of the day, there's not enough sunlight to generate electricity," said John Joyce, solar support program manager for the utility.
Perhaps you can see where I'm going with this. Jay Leno can, on bright and sunny days, generate enough electricity to power more than 40 homes with his solar system. But, that's enough for just 40 percent of the power needs of his garage?!? WTF does he do in that garage that uses as much energy as all the homes on a residential street? Whatever it is, I have a hard time calling this garage green. Greener than before, sure, but excess consumption and energy use is as green as brown.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
brian whittle 8:58AM (5/28/2008)
I am I bit of a tree hugger myself but can appreciate history and craftsmanship, at least Jay is doing something to lower his energy usage. Having is garage somewhere cooler would probably been more sensible but too late now.
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David Stone 1:27PM (3/24/2009)
Pacwind http://www.pacwind.net/ made the wind powered source.
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Throwback 12:01PM (11/10/2007)
I think you misread the article. I took it to mean 2/3rds of the day their is not enough sunlight, so they are on the grid. When there is enough sunlight he sends power back to the grid. When they have enough sunlight they generate enough power for 40 homes. I'm sure the garage consumes more power than the average home, the AC alone must be huge, the garage IS 17,000 square feet. I would ove to spend a day there checking out is rides.
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mike 12:16PM (11/10/2007)
Remember, Jay, is now an early adaptor.
Those 40% efficiency panels have not yet hit the market.
And is Jay in his Garage, using power tools every day?
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why not the LS2/LS7? 12:36PM (11/10/2007)
Here comes the math:
It's a 54KW system (peak). Let's say it makes 54KW for 6 hours a day. In reality it only makes peak power for a short time, but it also makes less than peak for more than 6 hours, so we'll use this as an estimate.
54KW*6 hours a day * 30 days / mo = 9.72MWh/month generated.
He said the panels cover 41% of the electricity used. SO...
9.72MWh/month * 0.41 = 3.985MWh/month used.
The average house uses 866KWh/month (http://solarbuzz.com/Consumer/FastFacts.htm).
So he's really using as much energy as 4.6 houses.
Perhaps the 40x figure is as much power (essentially peak power, meaning peak energy consumption rate) as 40 houses' peak rates.
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rob 12:45PM (11/10/2007)
I suspect Jay could have installed a much smaller system and met 100% of his energy needs by concentrating first on what he was using the energy for, and doing that as efficiently as possible before taking bids on a solar system...
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Scott 1:31PM (11/10/2007)
It sure the heck is better than doing nothing. Give the man props for that. He can do better and maybe he'll set the bar for the other stars. I definitely have more respect for Jay then I did before.
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Pacific John 1:35PM (11/10/2007)
My calculation says he's using enough power for about 16 homes, but look at that roof. He has a big building with a huge air conditioning bill.
Running regular ac on PV power doesn't pencil-out. If he were a few miles away with lower humidity, he could run evaporative cooling, and he'd look a lot more green.
[My math: 54kW*6hrs/day of sun*.62 (battery eff, sun angle, clouds)= 200 kW-hr/day (approx); 6000 kW-hr/month. If 6000 = 41%, 14634 = 100%. This is (16) 866 kW-hr/mo homes.]
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Domenick 1:48PM (11/10/2007)
I think Jay probably keeps his place at a steady temperature and humidity level. That would be somewhat energy intensive for a 17,000 sq.ft. place. It looks like he has his roof pretty full of panels plus he's got the wind turbine. I think it's a pretty decent effort. So far.
It'd be nice to see almost every roof looking like that.
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earl 4:59PM (11/10/2007)
This is also a place of employment I'm sure, so comparing it to homes might be a little misleading.
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why not the LS2/LS7? 7:23PM (11/10/2007)
Pacific John: those seem like figures. I stupid multipied by 0.41 when I could have divided by it.
16 homes is kinda bad, but not as bad as 40 homes.
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Dave 8:46PM (11/10/2007)
Anybody know how much energy is required to mine the raw materials, ship them, refine them, manufacture the PV cells (and wiring, support structure, etc), ship and install them?
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Bill 8:55PM (11/10/2007)
Yep, A/C uses stupefying amounts of power.
My 1,200 sq.ft. home uses less than 20 kWh/day, when I'm not running the central A/C.
Triple that those days the A/C runs.
Too bad we don't have California-style subsidies here - even a small 2 kW solar system would me run close to $15,000 installed
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motorman 10:05PM (11/10/2007)
he uses no more energy the babs streisand to heat and cool her 35,000 square foot mansion when she is not there. at least jays place is productive as he has people working restoring his old cars.
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why not the LS2/LS7? 10:20PM (11/10/2007)
Dave:
http://www1.eere.energy.gov/solar/clean_energy_payback.html
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Mik_Cal 3:28AM (11/11/2007)
He ought to put a ground source heat pump in there, or evaporative cooling, to cut down on the A/C bills. Ground source heat pump with a sufficiently large ground loop should use about 1/2 to 1/3rd the energy to cool the place.
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vfx 10:53AM (11/11/2007)
So your answer to WTF is:
There are employees working in a business building
The building is in Burbank (an extremely hot location in the San Fernando Valley)
It's not 40 homes but 16 and home-business is a bad comparison
And probably most important for a car collector and restorer is a climate controlled building to preserve the rubber, leather and other materials in antique cars (like his Baker Electric) that would decay in the day-heat and night-cold of the LA desert.
I too applaud him in looking at his energy use and applying Solar AND Wind to make a dent in his draw
I would be tempted to buy 5 Teslas!
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Pacific John 12:35PM (11/11/2007)
To summarize the comments - it's not that Leno's shop is an unusual energy hog, but that traditional SoCal industrial buildings use a hell of a lot of power. I know mine does.
Even though his system does not pencil-out, Leno deserves props for the effort. Someone has to be first at this sort of thing.
The real lesson from this thread is, we haven't begun to think about what our workplaces are going to be like in 20 years.
...I just remember a very bright solar engineer I went to school with saying we need to have a lot of deciduous trees and south-facing buildings. Makes sense to me. A big unshaded tar and gravel roof pulls in an unfathomable amount of summer heat.
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Yggdrasilly 9:57AM (11/12/2007)
I'm so glad these people are now able to store their gas-guzzling sports cars in air-conditioned comfort in an ecologically sensitive way.
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Dennis Thomas 9:27PM (11/12/2007)
I watched a History Channel show on environmental issues which displayed a wind power source that Leno uses on his garage. I missed the manufacturer who made the wind turbine system (for home use). Can you tell me who that was and how I contact that source?
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