One of the things we'll be doing at this blog is highlighting successful clean energy projects that Evolo Energy Solutions has been a part of. We're proud to offer products that allow Mainers to produce safe, healthy, and reliable electricity.
The Burges Tree Farm in Newport (www.burgessstreefarm.com) recently installed an Eoltec Scirocco 6kW windmill and an evacuated tube solar thermal hot water system. As a result, their electricity bill this month was $8.36, for the second month in a row! You read that correctly, their electricity bill each of the last two months was $8.36. Imagine that. And not only have the most recent bills been as inexpensive as they get (just paying delivery fees), through a process called ‘net metering’, they have banked nearly 275 kWh of electricity just this year.
What is ‘net metering?’ Net metering is the system that our electric utilities in Maine use for keeping track of renewable energy credits for home and business applications that are tied to the grid (grid tie). Projects up to 660kW can be net metered. Essentially, the utility allows you to ‘bank’ any power you make, that you don’t use, in a given month. Then you can use those ‘banked’ kWh in the next twelve months. This works well for us here in Maine, because our wind resource is better in the winter than in the summer (and vice versa with our solar resource). So, you can make electricity from the wind energy now, and use it in July when the breeze is just barely blowing. Another benefit, no batteries! (will talk more about batteries in another post)
