Wednesday, May 27, 2020

Going Green, Gone Solar

About 750 years ago I was a little kid living in a small town in upstate New York. It was actually the only city in a rural county, surrounded by dairy and farm land, and from my youthful perspective not the kind of place where progressive thinking was a common thing. Yet somebody was progressive enough to install a solar energy system on a little house near the high school, and before I knew anything about anything I was enchanted by the thought of the Sun keeping a home warm. Solar energy became part of my eventual dream for a little cottage. 

Fast forward centuries later, and Rhodes and I bought a little house last year that clearly had the potential for becoming our combined dream home, and the house that needed some work became Bear Path Cottage. 

As a couple we are committed to going green as much as we can. We aren't ever going to win any awards for being environmental heroes, but we do our best to reduce our negative impact on the environment, and to reduce our carbon footprint. The green changes we have made to the outside of the property are the most visually evident ones; adding gardens and planting trees and other things to attract and sustain pollinators as well as make our family a little more food independent is a big deal to us. If we don't beat the birds, raccoons, and bears to the berries every year, well, that's just part of the gardening game in the mountains and they are just some of the neighbors we can share our harvest with. 

Some additional changes we made were replacing the electric tank water heater with a gas tankless system, replacing old windows with more energy efficient ones, and when we decided to add a parking space for my father-in-law's entrance to the house we opted for a permeable parking system. That choice was inspired by (though it looks nothing like)  the amazing parking system that we saw when we visited The Wild Center in Tupper Lake, NY. (
https://www.wildcenter.org/thrive-together/sustainable-building/our-green-facility/) Those water penetrable paver lots made such an impression on us we carried the thought of them with us for four years. Thanks, Wild Center!

We had long discussed and agreed that we wanted to implement solar options if we bought a house where it was suitable. The long roof side of Bear Path Cottage is directly south facing and is basically a solar dream. After we closed on the house I attempted to research reputable local solar companies, but it is not easy to find information about that. The regional electric company was also no help, and there is actually a great deal of misinformation on the internet. We decided to put that project on the back burner until we could find more information. 

We had just started talking about it again when I saw that a former colleague is working as a sales rep for a solar company. I chatted with her a bit, did some research on the company, and then she came to meet with us to discuss the process. We were excited by the options presented to us, and couldn't wait to get started.

In February of this year a crew installed the solar panels on our roof. I admit it was a little disconcerting to listen to people drill holes in the less than a year old Cottage roof, but the work crew was professional, our rep was on top of everything, and in half a day's time we had the bones of the system in place. 

Duke Energy seemed to drag their feet on their end of things that had to happen to get the system running, and then the arrival of a pandemic and the related shut downs also slowed things down a bit. No worries - we are patient people. After more paperwork, and more emails, and the installation of the net meter, we were finally ready to power up. 

Four days ago Rhodes followed careful instructions from the solar company and flipped the switches that officially turned Bear Path Cottage into a generating facility, complete with a net meter and a solar photovoltaic generating system. But what do these $5 words even mean? 

For starters, it does not mean that we are off the electric grid, and it does not mean we can make money from the electricity generated by our solar panels. Duke Energy doesn't like either of those things, and does not allow them to happen. 

However, it does mean that we are now offsetting our electric bills with renewable energy produced through the solar panels/generating system installed at the Cottage. This is how our solar company explains our system: "After solar panels are installed on your home you begin producing power. Any excess power your home doesn’t use will be sent back to your utility company. Your electric meter will run backwards. You will feed excess energy to the utility company during the day and then receive it back during the nighttime, at no cost."

It also means that some time down the road when solar batteries became an affordable option we will be able to store any excess energy produced by our generating system and then potentially go off grid. Additionally, we will still pay Duke Energy for whatever usage we have over and above what the Cottage produces. 

In less than four whole days the system has produced 58 kilowatt hours of electricity, and yesterday produced nearly 25 kWh. According to Duke Energy, we used 773 kWh in the last billing cycle of 31 days, which averages out to slightly less than 25 kWh per day. Translation: overall we are breaking even with output and usage, so are successfully reducing our use of fossil fuels and our carbon emissions. That's a good feeling, and another part of the dream coming true.

Dear hometown person from the 1970's who installed a solar energy system: someone noticed, and it made a difference. Thank you. 

Note: No photos, because the electric system bits are boring, and the panels blend so well with our roof that they are difficult to distinguish from the angle from which I could take a photo. So, here's a photo of the view from the Eagle's Nest at The Wild Center. 



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