a lot of our emerging artists generate their first projects here, which is great. then we continue to try to support figuring out where those works can go. we have been blessed to have that were produced in new york, go unto festivals, go on to the warsaw theater festival. to me, those are great things, when you see artists who think there is no or else of someone being interested in me being a woman of color telling her story and getting excited about it. that is our biggest accomplishment. artists becoming better artists. what is great about surely coming back to brava, we have this established, amazing writer who has won a slew of awards and now she gets an opportunity to direct her work. even though she is an amazing, established writer, the truth is, she is also being nurtured

as a director, being given space to create. >> and the play is described as ceremony and theater meet. in the indigenous tradition, when you turn 52, it is that the completion of an epic. the purpose of this ceremony is to celebrate. whenever you have been caring for the first 52 years, it is time to let it go. they have given me carte blanche to do this. it is nice for me in the sense of coming back 25 years later, and seeing my own evolution as an artist and a thinker. the whole effort even to put the

indigenous woman's experience center stage is very radical. because of the state of fear, it is a hard road to hold up an institution. it really is a hard road. i am looking at where we're 25 years later in the bay area and looking at how hard it is for us to struggle, to keep our theaters going. i would like to think that i am not struggling quite as hard personally. what i mean by that is that in tension, that commitment. what i see is that we're here to really produce works of not be produced in other places, and also to really nurture and women of color artists. i think that that is something that has not shifted for me in 25 years, and it is good to see that brava is still committed to that kind of work.

you know? ♪ >> happy birthday to you happy birthday to you ♪ >> windy will talk about the reflection of the community, we can only go with what we have on our staff. south asian managing director. african-american artistic director. latino outreach person. to us, aside from the staff, aside from the artists that we work with him being a reflection of oz, yes, the community is changing, but brava has always tried to be ahead of that, just that sense of a trend. i tried to make about the work that shows the eclecticism of the mission district, as well as serving the mission. that is what i feel brava is about. ♪

>> hi, my name is pete shoemaker and well toll energy center. i'm standing in front of a model of a home. this is one of the tools we use here to assess solar energy. five years ago i was in a position similar to that of many of you. i was a homeowner thinking about solar electricity for my home. i had to answer a bunch of questions. one, does this stuff work? would it work on my home and most importantly, can i afford it? well, i did the research. i bought a system. now i get to share that knowledge and that experience with you. for the next 30 minutes, we'll have a class in solar basics and we'll go out in the field and see an actual solar system being installed. 30 minutes, solar basics, stay with me.

>> let's talk about the technology, what is it and how does it work? there are three types of solar actually when you sauk about solar. i want to avoid the confusion to make sure we're focusing on the right one. two of them involve heating water and they're very viable technologies, can be very coast effective but we're not going to deal with them right now. one is solar pool heating. it pumps the water up there, heats it, runs it through there, the sun heats it and back into the pool. this one is called solar thermal or solar hot water. it heats domestic hot water or d.h.w. that's your hot water that you use four showers and dishwashers. we're going to talk about solar electric. they have the same technology as computer chips. they're similar in structure to that tran cystor-like computer chip technology based on

silicon. the best thing about them is there are no moving parts and they last a long time. there are cells, modules, and arrays. a cell is one of these pieces here. it's a small unit wired together in a certain way to produce half a volt. these are hooked together in whatever size to be a module or a panel. those terms are sort of used interchanningbly. you hook as many as you need to for your array. it is very modular and adaptable technology. you can put it whatever size you want. there are two sort of competing or comparable technologies on the market. crystal lynn is the one that's been the longest. it's made from crystals. it is firm, hard like crystal. they're over 85% or 90% of the market now. they have the highest efficiencies. in other words, they'll capture more of the sunlight per square foot than the other technology. this can be significant especially in a city like san francisco when maybe you don't have a lot of roof space, but

you want to get as much power as you can. this is probably the choice preferred for most homeowners. the second technology which is coming on strong is called thin film. that's really a whole different technology using a lot less material. it's like sprayed or painted on, a different way of producing electricity. this stuff has a lot of potential because it can be used in a lot of different ways. this is a thin film panel here, right here and one of the innovative ways you can use this thing is on thought metal seamed roofs. they have an add he'sive backing on and they can stick down on the roof without penetrating the roof. it's a very effective and cheap and safe installation process. thin film has a smaller, a lesser efficiency. half as efficient but it's about half the cost. so if you look at it, a small system 1.2 kilowatt systems, it produces 1.2 kill what's in full sun or 1,200 watts. in crystal lynn it could would

take 500 panels. in thin film it would take this much space. they would produce the same and at current prices they cost close to the same. let's look at the typical system components here and i'll show you how they're laid out on the house in a minute. we know what the array is. they're hooked together. they're mounted to the roof by rails and mounts. they're hooked together with wires and switches and things like that we call that the balance of the system. it's a relatively minor component as far as price goes. so your array is mounted to the roof. it's wired to the inverter which is a simple device that changes d.c. current to a.c. current. that's all it does. it fits on the side of the house next to the meter typically and isn't very large. about this big, a foot square maybe. so that's they typically are warranted for 10 years. they're probably last 15 years. so on a cost analysis for the system typically run an

inverter replacement at year 15. the inverter is wired to your loads. it uses electricity, appliances, whatever and it's also tied to your meter. the only real visual impact on the house is the panels. the other stuff is almost never the thing about solar panels is they work during the day owl. so the big question is what about at night? well when isn't shining. in the past the only solution you had to that was batteries. you would have to purchase a large group of batteries and wire them to your system. during the day the sun would produce what your house needed and charge up the batteries and at nighttime you would draw off the batteries. what has made solar go from a niche market and explode to a big popular market has been a breakthrough called net metering. because the sunshines differently during different parts of the year it makes

sense to go for a whole year before you settle accounts. so you get a statement every month, but you don't have to pay it unless you want to. your credits or debits roll over from month to month and at the end of the year you settle accounts. the key concept is magical in a sense. the utility grid is a two-way street. up in the lines. because you can do this, in effect, the grid can take the place of your battery. it reduces all of the cost of maintenance of electricity and ensures electricity. if you're tied to the grid, the grid is always standing there ready to serve you during the day it's charging a lot of power. my kids are at school, my wife and i are at work. there is not much going on. it's feeding my refrigerator or whatever. so most of my power is excess and being sent back into the grid. my meter is spinning backwards and banking credits to my account. when i come home at night, then i'm buying back electricity from the utility, drawing off my "virtual battery" in a

sense. think of it as an economic transaction. you sell back during the day and buy at night. and that's how it works. hi, i'm here with carl, he is the operations manager for solar city. we decided to take a little break from the cls room to so we could see some of the solar panels in action. carl, how are you? >> very well. nice to meet you. >> how do you like the weather? >> not too bad. >> kind of sunny. how does that impact our solar panels when we have lots of sun versus fog which we are typically accustomed to in san francisco? >> well, contrary to popular belief, solar panels will produce electricity when it's foggy out. how much depends on the density of the fog. on a day like today it's hazy for typical san francisco weather. on a day like talking, you can

expect 80% of your what would be your full production on a clear sunny day. >> so if i were thinking about getting solar panels and i lived in san francisco and i was worried about haze versus full sun and how that will impact what jets yated, are there any tools or tricks that i can use to determine what the production is going to be like? >> the first thing you need to do is look at what available area do you have. typically most residential systems gone on rooftops. in urban areas like this, we don't have big yards. they will go on rooftops. you need to have good southern access to sun. things that can impact your solar access are buildings in your vicinity, big trees, things that will keep the sun from reaching the available area on your house. >> how can i test myself before i get experts out to determine whether solar panels are going to work for me? i know, for example, one of my neighbors has an additional story. so sometimes that, you know, it's a little shady over there for a variety of reasons, but

are there things that i can do in advance of having the experts out? >> sure. if you have access to your roof, you can go up there with a compass and face south and kind of look to the east and the west and see what's going to -- what's going to cast shadows. if there say large obstruction like a neighbor's house or a large tree directly to the south, it gets a little more complicated trying to measure exactly what impact that will have on the area you're considering. you have to consider where your neighbor's house is relative to due south if it's not northeast or the northwest, then it's not really a big deal. if it's due south and it's significantly higher than the area you're considering, you're probably going to get pretty good shading throughout the year there is actually published data about expected sun hours in the different neighbors in san francisco, and actually for the whole state of california. there is also some tools that you can use that will directly measure the sunlight at any

given time, i actually have one with me ride now. >> show me. >> this is a meter and on a clear sunny day, you can expect about 1,000 watts per meter squared. >> is that enough numbers for my alarm clock or is that enough numbers for my refrigerator, what exactly is the ratio of energy to my appliances? >> it depends on your usage. if a large commercial building like this, they have a lot of electricity usage and they need a lot of panels here. your house will use a lot less. how much less depends on your usage. >> what is the impact of tilt versus flat and are those things that i need to think about before investing in solar panels? >> absolutely. you're tilting them up to harvest more sun and have them perpendicular to the sun. as utility them up, you can't have them close together anymore. as you can see my hands are shading each other here. you have to start separating them so they don't wind up casting shadows on each other. if you're able to get less panels in a given area.

>> i would love to take a look at one of these solar panels if you have something that we can look at. are they heavy? what's the deal with this? >> you're 150, 100 something pound person walking on your roof. >> 150? >> i'm 150 pounds. >> carl! >> most modern houses are designed to take the weight of a solar panel instaglation. >> i don't have to worry about panels falling in on me? >> hopefully not. >> hopefully not. >> if you have a good contractor, they'll do their due diligence. they'll do their homework. it's better for the industry if everyone does their homework and does the calculations to make sure the system is going to last 20 years, 30 years. >> that is another question. what is the lifetime of the system? do you have to have the solar panels replaced periodically? >> no, actually the solar panels last a really long time. there are solar panels in operation from the 1950's and the 1960's. the inverter is a piece of

hardware that has a lifespan between 10 years. they usually warranty between five and 10 years. that may need replacement down the line. the solar panels will last a good long time. this is what we have intalked here at british motors. what we have, there is no moving parts here as we are talking about. you have a tempered glass cover covering the cells themselves and an aluminum frame. each one of these little blue frames is the solar cell. the way this makes its power, you have the individual cells are tied together with these silver lines here which is actually thed soer which the equivalent of wiring. it ties the cells to each other in series or in parallel which are basic terms of saying how they join together, how they're wired together. this one here is about 35 pounds. you're welcome to check it out if you want. it's glass in an aluminum frame. >> let me see. >> you can do it, nice and light. >> oh, yeah. >> not too bad.

not too bad. >> all right. >> and a typical residential install is in this area about five or eight kyl watts which is 5 or 8,000 watts. >> that would use 15 to 20 of these. >> how are the modules themse

now you're thinking maybe i want to continue to do this. first off do the energy audit stuff and find an installer like you would do any other contractor. he takes care of the paperwork and the permits for you and floats the rebate. you just got to get one you like and want and sign those papers. how do you find an installer and how do you choose the ones you want? just like anyone else, you screen some people out, you do personal references, you check their website, you talk to them about the basics and ask for the address to see if you have some good roof space. if you decide it's ok for a salesperson to come out, they'll do that for you. it's all free. if someone tries to charge you for bids, almost no one will. pass on it. i want to give you the key information that you need to compare bids ro