Green Savings

I opened our bill from the power company the other day. The bill for the month of May is always our lowest, as we are usually able to refrain from using air conditioning (yet). With longer day length, we do not need to turn on lights for more than about an hour before we go to bed at night.

However, I was pleasantly surprised when I read past the gobble-de-gook to the bottom line of the bill to see that the power company owes us $55.24. That's right, our "bill" was a credit instead of a charge.

Eleven years ago, almost to the day, I was building our house. We had finished the framing and had the roofing rafters installed when the solar panels got delivered. It was still months before they would be installed, so I recall figuring out a location of where to store them securely until it was time to do the installation.

I had researched what application would be best for a residential setting at our latitude. I bartered the installation for electrical work on another guy's house and by September that year, the system was working.

Generally, the solar panels produce enough electricity to provide adequate power for our household's ordinary needs, such as for the refrigerator, freezer, clocks, and some (fluorescent) lighting at night. When our power demands are greater than that, such as when we need to have the air conditioning turned on, then we draw power from the grid. But in those weeks with cool weather and long days, our system actually produces more power than we use, and our meter runs backwards. That's right, we sell our excess power back to the power company. The company is required by law to pay us for the value of the kilowatts of power produced over demand.

Most months of May, we still incur a bill, though it is low. This was the first time that prolonged cool weather (since it has rained so much) with long days resulted in a huge credit. While my neighbors are griping about their electric bills being so high, we're basking in the glow of a wise decision to install solar when we built the house.

Let me tell you, installing an active residential solar power system is not for the faint of heart nor is it cheap. We figure that even with tax credits and other government incentives provided at the time of installation, it took about seven years for us to realize enough savings on our electric bill to pay for the added cost of installing the solar panels and hooking it all up. As an electrician, let me tell you, the hookup was incredibly complex. However, we are happy with our decision, and have the "greenest" house in the neighborhood! (Kinda goes well with our green lawn LOL!)

Life is short: go green!