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It's Summer theater time again. If you've
been reading The Energy Miser for a year or
more, you'll recall that last summer I was in
the Arts
Alliance's River's Edge Players summer
production of How To Succeed in Business
Without Really Trying. Well the "good"
news is, I'm in this
year's production of Damn Yankees.
The better
news is that I
convinced my wife to audition and she got a
part too. Along with Jocelyne, there are many
talented people in the show and we would all
love to see you at a performance.
Damn
Yankees is a Broadway musical about a
Washington Senators fan who makes a pact with
the Devil to help his baseball team win the
league pennant (older Red Sox fans can
relate). The original production of Damn
Yankees ran
for over 1,000 shows and won several Tony
awards.
Would you like to see the show? Download the
ticket order form here
or order tickets by calling 978-562-1646.
Show dates are August
14 and 15, 7:30pm at Hudson High
School's air conditioned theater, 69 Brigham
Street, Hudson MA 01749.
Help Support the Arts along the Assabet River!
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In my previous newsletter, I introduced the
Sunrise Solar powered attic fans. These fans
are designed to cool your attic so your air
conditioner will run less. The fans have a
built-in thermostat. They automatically go on
when the temperature in the attic reaches 80
degrees F. As your attic cools the fans go
off at 60 degrees F.
The fan and installation is $760 (for most
homes) and there is a 30% federal tax credit
and a 15% state tax credit. These credits
reduce the income taxes you pay by about $300.
We offer fans for normal pitched roofs, flat
roofs, and gable end walls. We also offer
fans with detachable solar panels so the fan
can be mounted on any roof and the panel can
be aimed south.
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Municipal utilities are not regulated like
the large publicly traded utilities and, as
such, do not have the same sets of rules to
follow. Net metering is one of those areas
where there is quite a bit of variation. Here
are some specifics:
Concord Light allows net metering and will
pay full credit for all kilowatt-hours
generated provided the generation is done
with a solar electric system. (Of the
municipal utilities we've spoken with, their
net metering policy is the most generous - it
has to do with The Forward Capacity Market,
Once I understand it, I'll explain it here.)
Princeton does "monthly" net metering. They
pay the the generation charge for excess
electricity generated within a month.
Hudson Light And Power does not do net
metering. You are paid only the generation
charge for power you put into the grid. (That
means that excess power you make during the
day is worth about 6 cents per kilowatt-hour
and when you buy it back at night it costs
you about 14 cents per kilowatt-hour!)
Holden does "annual" net metering. They pay
the generation charge for excess electricity
generated over the course of a year. They
currently have written
guidelines for systems under 5,000 watts
but have not yet written rules for systems
larger than 5,000 watts.
If you live in a town with a municipal
utility and are thinking about a solar
electric system, give us a call and we will
happily find out the rules that apply. Also,
a number of municipal utilities are joining
the Commonwealth Solar program, so you may be
eligible for the same grants that National
Grid, NStar, Unitil, and Western Mass
Electric customers get.
Net metering is not complicated. Once we
install your solar array, the power company
replaces your main meter with one that
measures electricity moving in either
direction. From that point on, they handle
the numbers.
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The Durrenbergers have completed two billing
cycles with TED (The Energy Detective)
monitoring our electricity usage. TED likes
to deliver bad news. But
that's good because our household usage of
electricity is down a few kilowatt-hours per
day. (May was down 89 kWh, 3 per day, June
was down 254 (8 kWh/day, but that could be
because of cooler weather and less
whole-house fan usage too.)
As it turns out, our clothes dryer is the
largest energy user in the house. When it is
running, it draws as much as 6,000 watts.
During a normal drying load, it cycles up and
down between a few hundred watts and several
thousand watts. Each load uses about 3
kilowatt-hours of electricity (About 40kWh a
week!)
Since I know our low usage level (see below),
at bedtime, I can tell if something is
running that shouldn't be just by looking at
TED (shop lights, outside spot lights, garage
lights, computers, etc.). And, not
surprisingly, I find things left on less and
less. Everyone in the family is getting
better at turning stuff off!
After everyone is in bed, our usage
drops to about 400 watts. What draws power at
night? Refrigerator, lots of phantom loads
including, 3 portable phone chargers (We used
to have 6), five digital clocks in bedrooms,
one each in the stove and microwave oven, the
cable modem and router (we've had difficulty
getting the network to work correctly
after
powering them down), garage door openers,
various cell phone chargers...
Since this 400 watts is on all the time, 24
hours a day, 365 days a year it uses 3,504
kilowatt-hours a year or ~300 kilowatt-hours
a month (390 lbs of carbon dioxide per
month).
If you are interested in having a TED installed at your home, please give us a call. |
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Install a solar attic fain, Use rechargeable batteries, Add insulation, turn down your thermostat, disable your doorbell, reduce waste, use a fan instead of an air conditioner, turn off the lights, switch to compact fluorescent bulbs, put computer gear on a power strip and turn it off at night, unplug unnecessary appliances, ventilate your attic, walk instead of drive, ride a bike, group your errands, inflate your tires, grow your own food, eat locally-produced food, recycle, use your most efficient vehicle, get a hybrid vehicle, wash your clothes in cold water, buy less packaging, use a clothesline instead of the dryer, drink tap water, print with narrower margins, use both sides of the page, buy less, compost, install a renewable energy system...
Thanks for Reading The Energy Miser,
 Mark Durrenberger
New England Breeze, LLC
phone:
978-567-WIND (9463)
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