Renewable energy, or call it homemade energy. It's a whole new world out there. By most accounts, it is not here yet, but coming fast. There are some success stories; a farmer in Lancaster County that is converting his cow poop into electricity, and selling it. Photovoltaics (PV) is getting close. With the current (get it? current?) federal tax credits and proposed Pennsylvania tax credits, and the credit you can get by producing electricity to sell back to the utility, it is really close.
I just walked down into my basement utility room to see if I am making any electricity. On a kinda' cloudy day, with some snow flurries around, I was pulling in 9 amps. With my system, the power is generated by the panels and stored in batteries. I have a bunch of circuits in the house that are powered by electricity stored in the batteries. On cloudy days and other times that the batteries do not have enough power in them to run my house, the inverter automatically switches over to draw electricity from the "grid", that is P P L. The nice feature of this kind of system is that if the electricity flow from the grid is interrupted, I can use power from my batteries even at times when the sun is not shining. That is as long as there is enough power stored in them.
My system is 9 years old. Today, I would use a little different plan. Today's PV systems are grid tied, rather than using batteries. The short explanation is that when your system is making more power than you are using, the excess goes into the grid, and you get paid for it. And when you are using more electricity than your system is producing, you simply import the required power from the grid. So if you are keeping score, PV is getting real close to winning.
Green building is getting some attention from other people who are also advocates.
For an interesting read, take a look at www:blog.pennlive/naturalliving/ Collette Cope has some interesting things to say concerning the state of green construction in the Midstate.
