CT Energy Trends In The Home
Home Facts: First up what is a Gigawatt? Electricity is produced and consumed in watts, as in a 40 watt light bulb. The common measure of a lot of electricity is a gigawatt or 1 billion watts of electricity, enough to power 300,000 average homes at a given moment.
More Home Facts: What is Net Metering? Net metering is a billing mechanism that credits solar energy system owners for the electricity they add to the grid. For example, if a homeowner has a solar system on the rooftop, it may generate more electricity during daylight hours than the home uses. If the home is net-metered, the electricity meter will run backwards to provide a credit against what electricity is consumed at night or other periods where the home's electricity use exceeds the system's output. Customers are only billed for their "net" energy use.
Solar power, both in industry and the home is undergoing a dramatic increase as the cost of solar panels and associated technology has dropped in price (decreased about 25%). Also, to the benefit of the solar movement, the tax incentives (federal and state) to deploy solar at the national and state level are very significant. Nearly 83,000 homes installed solar units in 2012. See what happened last year in the top ten most active states...
https://www.seia.org/news/multimedia/shareable-graphics
Other Good News:
- Solar creates jobs: Every second of the work day, more than two solar panels are installed by a solar worker on American soil. Today, solar employs 119,000 workers in the U.S.
- Solar powers homes: There is now more than 7.7 gigawatts of cumulative solar electric capacity installed in the U.S., enough to power more than 2 million American households.
- Solar drives our economy: In 2012, new U.S. solar installations were valued at $11.5 billion - more than double the $5.5 billion value of installations in 2010.
Those who are against the solar movement contend that solar is a fad. The installation increase is in stark contrast to this thinking. Solar is not the best energy source for many homeowners and it will never be useable in many parts of the country. No one is saying that Solar will get us off the hook when it comes to Mideast oil needs.
Getting Your Feet Wet! Links to help you decide if Solar is right.
Going Solar The Right Way
https://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/energy/stories/how-to-go-solar-the-right-way
Incentives and Programs by state and county:
https://www.cleanenergyauthority.com/solar-rebates-and-incentives/
