We’ve noticed an interesting phenomenon when customers start generating their own solar electricity – they start looking at electricity in a whole new way! As soon as you have a means of understanding how much electricity you produce, you naturally want to understand how much you consume, and if possible adjust your behavior so that you consume less without losing too many creature comforts so your PV system foots a larger part of your bill.

It’s in this context that we were interviewed on a story of the promise of smart meters for Maine and New Hampshire. The Green Alliance reports, via Foster’s Daily Democrat:

Michael Gray lives in Hampstead, NH and uses both a solar electric array and solar water heating system. Gray installed a device called The Energy Detective (TED), to add more monitoring options to his solar energy systems, which were installed by Exeter-based ReVision Energy. While nearly all solar electric systems installed today come with monitoring on the solar side, they don’t show homeowners the other side of the coin: how much power their home consumes.

“TED has a little LCD display about the size of an alarm clock. We keep it on the counter,” says Gray. “It can display in watts or money per hour. It was really transformative to actually see in real time what you’re using.

“That had an effect on our family. It makes us think, ‘Is that something we want to spend our money on?’ You can actually turn lights off and see the price per hour go down. Being aware has helped us.”

Read more at Foster’s website. And if you want more info, we’d be happy to talk with you more about the TED!

Melissa Coleman, a freelance writer who lives in the Platinum LEED-rated Cranberry Ridge Home, has launched a new blog called the Bright Minded Home.  The blog, which has a companion column in Maine Home + Design magazine, offers an investigation into the art of creating healthy, beautiful, and energy efficient homes.

For a taste of what the  blog and column will feature, here’s a selection of an interview between Melissa and Keith Collins, the owner of the BrightBuilt Barn in Rockport, Maine:

Q: What’s been the most successful component of the building?
A: Some people imagine you need a PhD to live in an energy-efficient, solar home. In fact, we’ve had zero problems with the solar photovoltaic (PV) and thermal hot water systems, and are putting about 5,000 kilowatt hours of solar electricity back into the grid each year.

More at: http://brightmindedhome.blogspot.com/2011/01/qa-with-keith-collins.html

About Cranberry Ridge

Photo Courtesy / © meyersphoto.com

We love a green building column being written by someone living in a green building – talk about an inside perspective!

Cranberry Ridge was the fourth home in the country to receive Platinum LEED designation and the first in the Northeast. Located near Wolfe’s Neck State Park in Freeport, Maine, it features solar PV and thermal, radiant heat flooring and passive solar siting.

ReVision installed the 2.4kw grid-tied solar electric system, which saves the home over $500 worth of electric bills each year, and a 90 tube Apricus solar hot water system, which produces over 24,000,000 BTUs each year (offsetting over 3 tons of C02 emissions).

2009 statistics of the home’s performance are available at: http://www.writehands.com/cranberryridge/index.html

If you like Melissa’s writing, be sure to keep a look out for her upcoming memoir about growing up during the 1970s back-to-the-land movement, This Life Is in Your Hands: One Dream, Sixty Acres, and a Family Undone.  It will be published by HarperCollins on April 12, 2011.

The 8.2kw photovoltaic system at Greely High School will offset more than 14,000 pounds of C02 emissions each year

Greely High School students are giving solid proof that committed young people can make a difference.

Part of that difference? Making a 8.2kw grid tied solar electric array on the school’s roof a reality.

The Forecaster reports:

The Global Awareness Club … recently raised almost $50,000 for the purchase and installation of 36 solar energy panels at the school… The panels could save School Administrative District 51 about $150 a month in energy cost, or an annual savings of more than $1,800.

The savings would come from 11,428 kwh of renewable energy a year, and would prevent nearly 15,000 pounds of carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere each year.

Seeing how much teenagers can achieve is rewarding for [club member Katie] Longo and her fellow club members. “You kind of say to yourself, oh, if I put my mind to it I can do a whole bunch,” she said. “But now … every week, you’re getting together with people and you’re actually seeing a project through and seeing its effect on the community that you live in.”

We applaud the efforts of this committed group of students. It has been an honor to work with numerous students over the years as they pursue efforts to secure grants and financing for solar projects on their schools.

See more examples:

• Solar on Winthrop High School
• Solar on Falmouth High School
• Solar on Yarmouth High School
• Solar on Bangor High School
• Solar on Gray-New Gloucester High School

The Town of Dayton, Maine will now enjoy electric bills of nearly zero year-round thanks to a 15 kilowatt grid-tied solar electric system commissioned the first week of August.

The system, which received funding from Efficiency Maine as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

An article about the project was featured in The Journal Tribune:

The solar panels will produce 21,000 kilowatt hours of electricity a year, according to an e-mail from Town Treasurer Angela Cushman.

Last year, the town used about 24,600 kilowatt hours of electricity for the municipal building, which includes heating and cooling, at a cost of about $3,600, said Cushman.

The system uses real-time data monitoring so that the town can track performance of the system.

Read more about the system in the full article from the Journal Tribune (PDF Download).

More Photos, from Our Commercial Solar Project Gallery:

This 3.2kw solar electric system just installed in New Hampshire will generate over 4,000 kWh of electricity each year.

We’ll often say that the only limiting factors of a grid-tied solar electric system’s size are available roof space and budget.

If you have a huge roof with great southern exposure, you can install enough solar to produce more electricity than you’ll ever need.

Most homeowners, however, choose to offset a portion (say 30-50%) of their overall use.

Here are a few steps on how we calculate what you use and how to size a system accordingly:

Find Out What You Use

One of the first things to do is look at your electric bills, which will give you can get a good handle on what your energy needs are each month.

You’re billed based on how many kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity you use. A kilowatt hour is simply a measurement of energy – 1kWh = 1,000 watts * 1 hour.

Every appliance in your home has a wattage rating which, multiplied by the number of hours you use it per day, will give you an idea of how much it contributes to your electric bill.

Conveniently, most electric bills include several months of data so you can get a rough average of what you use over a longer period of time. It’s also helpful to compare winter vs. summer data as your needs might vary widely – for instance, if you use electric space heat your use might spike in the winter; on the other hand, if you use air conditioning your use might spike in the summer.

Once you have a basic handle on how much you consume, you can see how much impact a solar electric system will have on your bill.

How Grid Tied Solar Cuts Down Your Electric Bill

The beauty of a grid-tied solar electric system is that we use the electric grid as a battery.

When you produce more electricity than you consume, that energy goes out to the grid and is credited to your account. When you are using more electricity than you are producing, you simply use grid power as normal, and deduct accumulated credits off of your bill.

This means two things:

• You can produce more than you use in the summer and benefit from that overproduction during the dark winter months.
• You can install a system that provides less than 100% of your needs and still benefit from all of the electricity it generates.

A 1 kW solar electric system will produce 1,000 watts of electricity when in full sun. If you get an hour of full sun on that system, you’ll have generated 1 kWh.

In New England, we’ve found that each kilowatt of installed solar will generate roughly 1,300 kWh of electricity each year, varying a bit depending on where you are in Maine or New Hampshire.

By taking the amount of kWh you consume, and dividing them by 1,300, you can get a ballpark estimate of how many kilowatts of solar you would need to completely offset your electric usage.

Solar Energy at Work

Let’s look at an example based on the typical American home. The US Energy Information Agency estimates that the average home uses about 10,656kWh each year (Source: End-Use Consumption of Electricity 2001).

That means the average American home would require a 7.6kw solar electric system to completely offset their electric needs  (10,656/1,400 = 8.2).

Realistically, most homeowners opt for a 3-5kw system to offset a portion, but not 100%, of their electric needs, and either work towards a second solar system sometime in the future or work towards reducing their load to match their solar production as closely as possible.

We’ve covered the economics of solar electricity before – by purchasing solar you’re basically locking in your electric cost at below market rates for the next 40-50 years. A great buy in an increasingly uncertain energy climate!