Meg Simone is known for creating timeless wedding films at New England’s most gorgeous destinations. Her home post-production studio is where precious moments come to be – thanks to a fair amount of electricity! Making her operation a little greener this year is a pole-mounted 3.7kw photovoltaic sstem installed be ReVision Energy just in time for the holidays.

Meg shares her enthusiasm for the system in this quick video:

We touched based with Meg to ask her about the process and what she likes about the new system:

When we built our house we put in a evacuated tube solar hot water system with ReVision. We know there are other options out there for solar installers but we love the personal attention, ease of install (thanks Jen for taking care of the paperwork) and customer service that stands behind the product. The vast experience from the team at ReVision is unmatched. You don’t have to take my word for it, you can read their bios!

We had wanted to add solar electricity for a long time, and finally the incentives and rebates afforded us the opportunity. ReVision made my life easy and this process FUN. The guys are so friendly we told them to come in for lunch on the 2nd day of the install! In fact, the team is so friendly and personal it feels like a friend has helped install this not just a business.

We love seeing how much power the system makes each day. It’s a good feeling to know that the sun can power our at-home businesses and reduce our carbon footprint.

See some more photos of the installation on our Facebook page, courtesy of Meg:

When Bill Babb and his wife Barbara retired from their jobs as school teachers, controlling monthly costs was an important way to maintain the good life. Investing in financial markets looked shaky, and they wanted to see something positive result from their efforts. After seeing a presentation by a former student, Hans Albee, they started looking seriously at a solar energy investment – and they liked what they saw.

“For years, the upfront cost was an issue with solar,” Bill says, “But when we looked at it recently we were pleasantly surprised – the cost of solar panels had dropped considerably, and with state and federal incentives, we found we could purchase a system that would be a better investment for us than the stock market. Barbara and I both agreed that the cost of energy will only rise, and rise faster than it has in the past.”

As a pragmatic environmentalist (and climate change skeptic), Bill was attracted to solar’s minimal impact on the natural landscape. He likes that his clean power doesn’t add turbines to untouched landscape, block up or contaminate waterways, or contribute to air pollution. He also likes the impact solar has had on his monthly bill.

“We were expecting the system to produce around $50 a month of power, but so far it’s produced closer to $60-70,” Bill says. “We’re happy to be banking some power for the winter months, and seeing our electric bill dramatically reduced. The system has done everything I wanted it to do from day one.”

Solar Hot Takes it Farther

Bill and Barbara’s positive experience with solar electricity lead them to adding a solar hot water system, which further reduces their home’s fossil fuel needs by allowing their boiler to go dormant for 5-6 months of the year. We caught up with Bill just a few weeks after the system was installed, and he reports that so far, it had stayed well above the 110 degree mark that would trigger his boiler to turn on.

“The furnace has been turned off for weeks and we have had plenty of hot water, even without changing our lifestyle” Bill says, “On days that are a cloudy mix with little direct sun, we’re surprised at how much heat the system produces. We like it!”

For Cheryl Frederick, Assistant Professor of Captive Wildlife Care and Education at Unity College, the tipping point for energy came this past semester when she had a guest lecturer in her classroom talk about coal.

“There is nothing clean about coal,” she remembers, “And our environment is in crisis. I thought – I need to go beyond teaching this to living it.”

That decision brought her to ReVision Energy, who she learned about through colleagues at the university who were familiar with our work. She appreciated not only the lofty recommendation she received, but that she would be employing Unity alumni for her project.

PACE Financing Makes it Possible

Cheryl’s system took advantage of the new PACE program by Efficiency Maine, a low-interest loan tied to the value of your home specifically made for renewable energy and energy efficiency improvements. Maine is the first state in the country to offer PACE financing and Cheryl’s may be one of the first home to use it for solar electricity. But despite the newness of the program, she says the experience was great.

“The whole process took about a month,” she says. “Now our money now goes to the loan instead of the utility bill, and if we stay here long enough we’ll get most or all of our electricity for free. It’s an amazing program – we wanted to do solar and the PACE loan made it possible.”

Solar As a Form of Entertainment

Cheryl, like many solar electric system owners, finds herself having lots of fun watching the performance of her system through her web-based monitoring portal. She can now see how much power she generates in a given day and check in from anywhere with an internet connection.

“It’s like watching stocks go up – you have a nice sunny day and then get to see how much power you generated,” she says, adding “The website also tells you what your carbon offset is and how many trees you have saved.”

She finds that being aware of how much power she’s generating makes her more aware of how much power she’s using. “We have become more careful about our power use, and are hoping to bank more power this summer than we use.  That way, we can use more electric heaters this winter to offset our oil use.”

The best part? “I feel like I’m finally doing my part,” she says, “Instead of cutting down trees, I’m saving them.”

Thought you couldn’t build an apartment building in Maine without depending on fossil fuels? Think again! Paul Ledman proves with his new 3-unit dwelling in Portland that exceptional insulation and smart mechanical systems can work to make a home that requires no source of energy other than the sun… even in Maine! Even with tenants!

We’re proud to have this exceptional building in our backyard and thank Paul for taking the time to talk to us about this exciting project.

A strong state rebate for solar hot water and high oil prices have lead to a huge demand for solar hot water systems in New Hampshire.

We’ve been all around the Granite State – from Seacoast to the Massachusetts border, up to Lakes Region and nearly to Vermont. Below are some examples of recent work we’ve completed.

Nashua, New Hampshire

Since his awning mount solar hot water array was installed in early June, Lou Juris reports that hasn’t needed to use his backup system at all. Going solar for his hot water gives him peace of mind that as costs for energy increase, he won’t face any shocking gas bills.

Wolfeboro, New Hampshire

These 6 flat plate collectors installed in Wolfeboro arrived just in time for 15 guests! Our happy customer says that the entire time the party was there – showering, washing dishes, doing laundry – solar provided 100% of all the hot water.

Deerfield, New Hampshire

Maureen Quinn, who had us install a solar electric system last year, re-invested the proceeds from PV federal tax credit into a solar hot water system. The rebates were just too attractive to pass up, says Quinn, who also is looking forward to decades of hot water and electricity provided by a free fuel source in the sky – the sun.

Tom Southworth’s BEYOND net zero home will sell power to the grid each year!

Tom Southworth’s commitment to sustainability runs deep. Since 1974 he’s owned and operated a water-powered sawmill in Lancaster, New Hampshire, around which he built the successful Garland Mill Timberframes business. Tom imparted his passion to his son Ben, whose work includes turning a 1970s ranch house into a LEED Platinum, Net Zero showcase. So when it came time to build a home to retire in, Tom set his sights high: he wanted a house that would not only generate all of the electricity it uses each year, but also produce a surplus to sell to the grid.

New Hampshire Ups the Ante

“What got me started in this direction is when New Hampshire went beyond net billing and offered to write me a check if I produce more power than I use,” Tom says. “I took a hard look at my energy usage and determined that 8,000 kWh/year would allow us to meet all our needs and be a net exporter of electricity.”

Most impressive is that Tom both exports power to the grid and heats his home with electricity. While conventional wisdom is that electric heat is expensive, 21st century building standards challenge that assumption completely.

“While it’s not official yet, we built this house to meet German passivhaus standards,” Tom says. “This means an extremely well-insulated building envelope consisting of 12″ exterior side walls packed with cellulose sheathed with 2″ foam, and 40″ of cellullose packed into the truss system. We moved in on April 1st and so far have not used any heating whatsoever.”

Tracking Results

Tom Southworth’s solar thermal storage tank is tied into its own electric meter to track run time of the backup electric element

To keep track of his goals, Tom uses a decidedly analog but very effective method of monitoring his systems – an extra electric meter dedicated to tracking photovoltaic production, and a second dedicated to his hot water tank. In addition to the photovoltaic system, Tom had us install a solar hot water system tied into an existing 120 gallon storage tank with electric backup.

“Since we don’t really know much electricity our backup tank will use in the winter, we added the second meter so we could really understand it,” Tom says, “We expect to use only solar-heated water from May through September and will be closely watching how much the electric element is needed in the other months.”

Power While the Sun Shines

Now that everything is up and running, Tom says the system is so far “on target” for photovoltaic production.

“I’m 100% pleased with the system,” Tom says, “I look forward to enjoying my years of retirement knowing my energy comes from the sun.”

Forrest Lowe’s combination domestic hot water and pool heating system uses 6 flat plate collectors to deliver ample heat to his pool in the summertime (Photo courtesy Forrest Lowe)

When Forrest Lowe and his wife were seeking their perfect retirement home, they knew they wanted a quiet spot by the water. Longtime Brunswick residents, they fell in love with a house on Coffin Ice Pond, which years ago supplied ice for the town. What Forrest didn’t expect, however, was to also fall in love with the pool that came with the house.

“At first I was lukewarm about the pool,” Forrest says, “But ultimately it grew on me, though we knew we had to find another way to heat it because the propane heater that came with it was smelly, and extremely expensive to operate.”

A Better Way to Heat a Pool

While most pools are heated by propane, a small but growing cadre of pool owners are harvesting Maine’s abundant solar energy to open their pools earlier and keep them open longer into fall. The same solar thermal technology that heats domestic hot water can help heat a pool, as Forrest learned from his friend Rick Williams, who recently had ReVision Energy install a solar hot water system on his home in Yarmouth.

“Rick introduced me to [ReVision Principal and Engineer] Fortunat, who was great through the whole process. He helped me come up with a 5 flat plate solar hot water collector system, which I ended up expanding to 6. I wanted an overkill system because I wanted our pool to heat up quickly and stay hot longer.”

Hot Water, By Design

Part of the challenge of keeping Forrest’s pool warm is that he is reluctant to use a pool cover, which he finds cumbersome for one person to deploy. As such, the pool loses heat overnight, a reality that’s compensated by the outstanding performance of his solar water heating system. Whenever the sun is shining, Forrest’s flat plate collectors heat up his home’s 105 gallon solar storage tank before dumping excess heat into his pool.

“I am amazed at how effective this system is at heating the pool,” he says. “It only takes a little while to get the domestic hot water up to temperature and then starts dumping into the pool. On a nice sunny day you can feel the warm water pouring out the jets!”

A Great Solar Season

Forrest is thrilled at how the solar hot water combo system allows him to extend the season of his pool as well as enjoy it more during the season (there have been a number of days when the pool approached 90 degrees… balmy!). On a good sunny day he’ll see more than a 4 degree rise in the pool – no small feat considering the pool’s 25,000 gallon capacity. He loves the free fuel from the sun and the satisfaction that comes from clean solar energy. On the domestic hot water side, he notes that his boiler rarely fires in the summer, and estimates saving at least one oil delivery per season.

“To me this is not just about saving money,” Forrest says, “It’s about avoiding pollution and getting independent of fossil fuels.”

And, of course, enjoying his pool. Enjoy the sun, Forrest!

Bob Emory’s 4.7kw grid tied solar electric array will offset over 7,600 lbs of CO2 emissions each year.

On a clear day you can see Mt. Washington from Bob Emory’s home in Barnstead, New Hampshire. With such vibrant natural splendor in one’s backyard, it’s hard not to care passionately for the rugged landscape that characterizes Northern New England.

Affectionately calling himself a “treehugger,” Emory says that “Solar has been on my radar for decades,” ever since the days when lead acid batteries were the norm.

With the development of grid-tied solar, which interties directly with the electric grid and requires no moving parts, Emory felt that the technology had finally come of age. And with prices of coming down and a generous 30% federal tax credit available, the economics worked out, too.

Solar Power and the Big Picture

With all of the troubles in the world, Emory feels good that his solar energy system is making a tangible difference, reducing CO2 emissions in the region by offsetting his home’s power use. “I can’t stop tsunamis,” he says, “So solar is the next best thing.”

He is a loyal attendee of the Common Ground Fair held each September in Unity, Maine, and it was there he bumped into ReVision Energy. Apparently, our reputation precedes us as he remarks that “I was really just making sure you didn’t do something that ruled you out.”

So far, so good – he feels great about his decision to choose us as his partner in transitioning to renewable energy, which he felt was summed up the first words one of our installers said when we arrived on the job site – “Thank you for going green.”

The System

Emory’s system consists of 4.7kw of grid-tied solar electric panels that will produce around 5,875 kWh of clean solar electricity each year. Bob reports that during recent sunny spring days his system reports an output of around 32.5 kWh, power he is happy not to be buying from PSNH!

With PV just installed, Bob is already talking about solar hot water for his home – particularly because of the generous New Hampshire state rebate.

“I have nothing but very high praise from start to finish,” Emory says, “ReVision is a company who stands behind their systems and has been personable throughout the process. I look forward to many years of solar power ahead!”