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Running Your Electric Meter Backwards
kog777 writes to note a story in International Business Times about "net metering," or generating your own power without disconnecting from the grid. Forty states have laws allowing individuals to do this, and many of them offer subsidies and tax breaks for people who do. From the article: "When the sun shines bright on their home in New York's Hudson Valley, John and Anna Bagnall live out a homeowner's fantasy. Their electricity meter runs backward. Solar panels on their barn roof can often provide enough for all their electricity needs. Sometimes — and this is the best part — their solar setup actually pushes power back into the system."
My dad had a friend a while back that did this, I think maybe in Oregon or Washington, but I don't recall. He had a large property with a decent sized stream running through it, and set up a water wheel. It generated A LOT more power than he used, so he was constantly pumping power back into the grid, which his electric company paid him for, at something like one fifth of what he would pay for the electricity if he was drawing it. The startup cost wasn't that high, as he was an electrician and set it most of it up himself, and was way more cost effective than solar panels at the time (I don't know if that is still true, this was 10 or 15 years ago). He wasn't just saving money, but actually turning a profit of a couple thousand dollars a year.
I think some time later the regulations might have changed and the power company would no longer pay him, but at least he still had electricity that was essentially free.
Although solar cells aren't cheap, the prices have come down, and efficiency has gone up over time. It's kinda like buying a computer... If you're waiting for the fastest computer to come out before you buy yours, chances are you're reading this on a TI57 programmable calculator.
If you buy now, your savings start now. If you cover the cost of the cells in saved energy bills and rebates from the power company, then the fact that a 'better' system comes out later doesn't hurt you that much.... Once you have covered the original cost, you can always replace the system with a new one, and you really don't lose anything. (but you get the satisfaction of preventing the waste of a few barrels of increasingly precious oil, and slowing global warming by just a smidgen).
Before you do something, ask yourself "what would happen if a million people did this"?
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
And here is the reason you pay so much in taxes, folks. Those grants come from somewhere. Whether or not you like green power, if you live near this guy or in this guy's state (or worse, if it was a federal grant), you're paying for it. Out of your pocket. Today. If it was a federal grant, that money is debt money -- it could take a generation to pay off his grant, federally.
Government has no right to steal from me, or you, to pay for this guy's pipe dream. If he really wanted to do it, he should have done it with his own dollars, not robbing the tax payer of anything.
Of course the average greenie socialist here would mod me down, but I speak the truth -- there is no such thing as a free lunch, and this guy will get one after only 8 years or so. On your back.