The trials, tribulations and rewards of going solar
Earlier this year, I blogged about a new website set up to ease the chore of shopping for solar panels, EnergySage, and since then the company’s own blog has described two financial benefits of solar which I hadn’t thought about before.
Whenever a dinner party has an awkward pause and could use a horror story to liven it up, I tell my story of shopping for solar panels. My wife and I started in 2008 and spent months finding an installer.
My neighbors took a newfound interest in my solar array after Hurricane Sandy. Most of our town in New Jersey lost power for two weeks, and everyone who knew about my panels was asking: Did they keep my lights on?
Comly Wilson at CleanEdison, which runs training and certification programs for green-tech installers, has put together a list of five things homeowners should know before buying solar.
A couple of years ago, I reported on the experiences of a solar homeowner in England, and I was curious how the situation in Britain has evolved since then.
In one of the best quips I've ever heard at a scientific conference, cosmologist Max Tegmark complained about a lecturer's vagueness and pleaded for some quantitative predictions: "numbers—you know, the kind with decimals in them." Like Tegmark, I love data.
It sounds too good to be true: you can go solar without paying a cent. I first mentioned this proposition, known formally as a power-purchase agreement, two years ago: a company such as SunRun or SolarCity installs panels on your roof at its expense and, in exchange, collects the government subsidies.
At the SciFoo conference last weekend, brain scientist and illusionmeister Steve Macknik elevated a basic principle of energy conservation—turn off the lights when you don't need them—to a whole new level.
When I was getting my solar panels installed, I couldn't wait to see my electric meter literally spin backwards. Alas, as part of the process, the utility swapped out the old analog meter.
The iPhone seems like the perfect accessory for a solar power enthusiast. Right now, you have to navigate a maze of websites such as PV Watts to calculate how much energy you can expect to produce and how many years a solar array will take to pay itself off.
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