Let us worship the sun god... the local sun god.

[flexagon]

So I finished reading Deep Economy. It's about a lot of things -- well, money and happiness with some global warming thrown in. It makes a compelling case for the basic environmental and psychological sense in creating local economies. I have more than a few thoughts on this, but one that really grabbed me was the idea of making the power grid more like the Internet: decentralized, robust and something that people are familiar with contributing to instead of just consuming. (For larger buildings, one way this makes sense is that excess heat produced in power generation can be used to heat water and air for the building -- much better than letting it go up into the atmosphere unused the way it does in a big, centralized power plant). So cool!

One of the most exciting (if totally obvious) things I could do based on these thoughts is get some solar power going here. We had, last time I looked, 900 square feet of flat roof, with nobody taller than us near to cast shadows, and nothing on it. :) So here's some stuff I just read about tonight:

• NSTAR itself has nothing about solar or distributed energy on its site, even in the FAQ.


• However, this article clearly talks about people who have NStar as a service provider and also have solar panels. Meanwhile, this one talks about NStar even having a standardized application form for such a thing now (it's from 2005, but still).
  
• It's pretty clear we could get sizeable rebates available from the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative. The example stories I've seen usually show rebate amounts of about 40%; and a system should also raise the condo's selling price.


• From this guide: "Most PV systems produce about 10 watts of power for each square foot of PV module. This means that you can install a small starter system on as little as 50 feet of roof space, or as large as 1,000 square feet for a more powerful system. A typical two kilowatt system will need 200 to 400 square feet of unobstructed area..." We have 900 sq feet (although there's a chimney there somewhere). Looking at our NStar electricity summaries, we burned through 4510 kilowatt-hours in the last year (less two days). So we'd only need a 0.52 kilowatt system!


• We just finished our taxes; looks like if we had done this in 2006, we could have gotten a tax credit of 15% of the cost (including installation) or up to $1000. Also pretty sweet.

See, it's much more fun to own than to rent, precisely because you can think of doing things like this.

Comments

[nahele-101.livejournal.com]

you hippie!

:)

that being said, i intend to use my VA benefits next year to buy a house with solar alredy on it. throw in composting toilets and let me run a gray water system and i'll be a happy homesteader.

[flexagon]

That's yuppie to you, freak. Solar-powered homes are the next Prius, in case nobody told you... ;)

[nahele-101.livejournal.com]

get a composting toilet, ya binary freak.

:)

use your poop for gardens!

[flexagon]

I think it already is! Not as locally as that, it's true, but a) given our condo setup it'd be insanely hard to redo the toilet and b) no garden.

[nahele-101.livejournal.com]

gah!

[flexagon]

gah, no garden?

[bluechromis.livejournal.com]

Now see, I was pretty sure that big flat roofs were for roofdecks with hot tubs. Shows what I know. :) Kidding...solar panels would be awesome, and it does sound very economically feasible. I do remember reading somewhere that they aren't the sort of thing that raises a place's value enough to get the cost back, but it sounds like between the tax relief and the energy savings you might come out ahead anyway. (And it isn't like that is the only considering, there's also the social cachet that solar panels in Cambridge would give you.)

[flexagon]

Haha, yes... if I get them I'm going to brag about it insufferably for years. No idea if it can actually happen though; we have enough rooftop but we may not have buy-in from the co-owners of the roof. I'll definitely keep investigating. :)

[niralth.livejournal.com]

Very cool. I'm going to get a tiny one going at my apartment to provide power for light in my closet. Old apartment, no convenient power for closet, seems silly to buy a 50' power extension cord when I could take advantage of the nearby window instead.

Keep us informed of updates.

[flexagon]

What a neat little project idea. Would love to read details on the completed setup. I'll definitely keep you informed on this big one. :)