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Health & Fitness

Installing Solar Electric System Sustains Climate and Your Pocketbook

York resident Hilary Clark recently installed a solar electric system onto her roof to reduce her use of fossil fuels, and, as a result, will save up to $125 a month on her electric bill.

Whether donating your time or money to charity, or taking steps to help the environment, doing the right thing creates its own rewards. But when doing the right thing also adds to your bottom line, you receive double rewards.

York, Maine, resident Hilary Clark recently installed a solar electric system, comprising 30 solar electric modules — also known as photovoltaic modules — onto her roof to reduce her use of expensive, wasteful, climate-change-causing fossil fuels, and, as a result, will save up to $125 a month on her electric bill.

“I’ve always wanted to be off the grid to produce my own electricity,” Hilary says. “It’s something that I’ve wanted to do since the ‘70s.” She’s still on the grid, but, turning the tables on the traditional producer-consumer relationship, she will be able to sell her excess solar energy back to Central Maine Power.

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This type of solar electric system, called “grid-tied,” is significantly less expensive and more robust than battery-based “off-grid” systems. A grid-tied solar array will generate electricity any time the sun is shining, powering electric loads in a home, or, if it produces excess, exporting electricity to the grid and receiving a credit. Credits issued by the utility can be carried up to a year.

Hilary, a member of York’s Energy Steering Committee and the York Land Trust, built her house in 1993, implementing the green practices of the time, almost all experimental, including building in a solar hot water system. She considered putting in photovoltaic cells but balked at installing the requisite bulky bank of batteries. So she waited.

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Fast forward almost two decades and we see Hilary attending a lecture by Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org. He is one of the leading advocates for persuading the world community to accurately assess our climate and for spreading the message that we can’t continue to put excess carbon into it because fossil fuels will irrevocably and radically alter our atmosphere.

So Hilary asked herself, “What can I do to lessen our impact on our earth and our atmosphere?”  leading to a second question, “How can I produce electricity that’s not carbon-based?”  A friend had put photovoltaic modules onto her roof in Portsmouth, using the company ReVision Energy, so Hilary learned more about the technology and the company.

Revision Energy is Maine’s and New Hampshire’s leading solar installer, offering service throughout both states from offices in Portland, and Liberty, Maine, and Exeter, N.H. ReVision exclusively installs solar energy systems – specifically solar
electric and solar hot water.

As an individual member of Green Alliance — from which she receives exclusive discounts to nearly 100 local green businesses throughout the region — Hilary also liked that Revision Energy is a business partner of Green Alliance, a local green business union that certifies its member businesses green and advocates greener choices to the public.

Hilary also discovered that her timing is right to install a solar electric system.

“Right now is a good time to do it because of a 30 percent federal tax credit, which is very big, a dollar-for-dollar tax credit,” Hilary says.

Efficiency Maine, an independent trust dedicated to promoting the efficient and cost-effective use of energy, also offers up to a $2,000 rebate towards the purchase of PV modules. It also offers PACE Loans, allowing eligible homeowners to borrow up to $15,000 over 15 years at 4.99 percent for energy upgrades that generate enough savings on heating bills to pay back the loans. Unlike ordinary loans, PACE loans are transferable with the property if it is sold.

New Hampshire offers its own energy rebate, which is expected to adjust to $3,000 in July 2012, according to Fred Greenhalgh, online marketing manager and sales associate for ReVision Energy. He notes that in years past, the urge to install solar power was typically an environmental motivation.

“Ten years ago, the economics weren’t there,” he says about solar electric systems. “Now, the economics have changed. For people who wouldn’t even have thought about it before, now it makes sense. We’ve reached a tipping point and have seen huge growth. Solar protects you against the cost of traditional energy, and Maine-New Hampshire has some of the highest emissions per capita. We are highly oil dependent. Our two states export huge amounts of money to pay for fossil fuels, which carries both a heavy financial and environmental burden. Solar offers a way to change that.”

But a solar electric system “should pay for itself in 10 years,” Fred says, because besides incentives and rebates, improvements in manufacturing technology have more solar more competitive, the cost dropping 50 percent in 3 years.

Installation of photovoltaic modules is a two-day process and interested consumers should first visit the ReVision Energy website to answer preliminary questions. ReVision also offers free information by telephone or in a visit to one of its showrooms. The next step would involve a ReVision professional visit the prospective house for an assessment.

“It doesn’t cost anything to have someone come and talk to you,” Hilary says of ReVision, adding that during the June 2012 installation of her solar electric system the ReVision crew “was great.”

And the results of their work are fantastic: “I go out and check the meters constantly,” Hilary says. One meter shows how much carbon she is not putting into the air, another shows how much electricity the new system is generating and a third shows how much electricity she is selling back to CMP.

And the stakes are high as Hilary learned during a week she spent this winter on the Mt. Washington summit. 

“A meteorologist told me: ‘It’s really, really hard to predict the weather now, because all of the weather models we have don’t work anymore.’ And that’s what’s happening. For those of us who know the natural world, we can adapt, but that adaptation takes place over the course of a 1,000 years, not over the course of ten years.”

For more information about ReVision Energy, visit www.revisionenergy.com . And for more information about Green Alliance, visit www.greenalliance.biz .

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