It was a great experience to sit for a few hours with Eric Doub of Ecofutures to see just how you put pencil to paper to start laying out options for what exactly should be done, what kind of heating and electric loads the house has, and where photovolatic (PV) and solar thermal panels could go. Should we convert the furnace to a heat recovery ventilator? Is there space for a large storage tank? What's the value of a specialized system vs. something that's less agressive but could be duplicated in more homes?
One sad note that I can't believe I didn't think of earlier. Since I'm not in Xcel Energy territory for electricity, there are no rebates for PV. While the City of Longmont offers net metering, in essence, allowing the meter to run backwards to credit the homeowner for electricity produced, there is no rebate that would pay for roughly half of the system. When a PV system runs in the $40-$50K range easily, that's a big deal.
Funny though, Eric also noted that the electricity rate was really low...just about 6 cents per kWh compared to about 10 cents per kWh for Xcel.
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