Saturday 29 September 2007

Solar eh? Oh oh!



Well, my happy heart is not singing (There's a Dean Martin song called Volare that was being played a few years ago that had the line "No wonder my happy heart sings" in it).

Anyway - The solar man cometh and delivereth less than sunny news. I'd been playing phone tag with him literally for months and was beginning to think it was a waste of my time to try and continue with this person when we finally connected. What he told me was not unexpected, but was disappointing. We live in the woods and in order to have effective solar panels, we would have to cut down a bank of oak trees behind our house. This I was actually (reluctantly) prepared for. What I did not want to hear was that if I started with a smaller system I would have to pay 2000$ extra per watt. Generally they charge $8000 per watt - but if you purchase a system of smaller than3 watts $24,000 then you pay $10000 per watt (I'd wanted to start with 1 watt and build up as I had the money. Not only that but we have to find a place in our house to store batteries the size of our dining room table. (Batteries that could potentially explode and do need extra ventilation. Hmmm!) Losing my trees and all my savings doesn't seem like a very sunny proposition. More decisions to make and things to think about. I'm very disappointed.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sorry about that. Going solar is hard and they plan to keep it that way. Couldn't you just store the power in a whole bunch of little batteries?

Guilty Secret said...

That is really disappointing. Cutting down tree is no good though :(

ChrisB said...

Getting solar in this country is very expensive and isn't always successful but the sales people don't tell you that!!

Nessa said...

Did you consider windmills?

Carla said...

Yep, I'm in about the same situation over here. Wish they would make going green more affordable.

Pamela said...

our neighbors have solar heated swimming pool. It just seems so very simple.

It would be cheaper for you to dig your house in the ground - it would stay a fairly constant temperature then.

neroli said...

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