11-22-2006
Yesterday, on a sunny Fall day north of Boston, Massachusetts, I threw the switch on our grid-tied, roof-mounted photovoltaic system. Clean energy from the sun flowed into our home electric system. Our old electric meter outside slowed down and made a motion to go backwards. Ironically, I ran inside and turned off every light I could find on (why didn't I do that in the first place?), not wanting to waste a bit of that electricity that we were generating locally from the sun.
As the system is grid-connected, the solar-generated electricity is now mingled in with the electrons provided by the nuke 15 miles north of us, not to mention the trash-, natural-gas, and oil-burning activities that generate electricity in New England. Grid-tied or connected means that if your system can generate enough electricity, more than you use, then the electric utility has to pay you for the surplus.
In Germany, if they can generate a surplus from their solar installations, consumers are paid eight times the rate per kilowatt-hour than they pay their utility for electricity. I wish we had that clever incentive in the U.S.!
Of course, when you're generating your own electricity in a renewable manner, you regard this power and how you are using it in a whole different light (pun intended). We have the potential to generate 40-50 percent of all of our electricity with our solar array, which includes 22 PV modules bolted to our roof.
My next entry will discuss our solar system in more detail, including the solar hot water system, which involves three collectors embedded next to our PV array. Thanks for reading this far.