{"id":5645,"date":"2018-06-17T17:22:24","date_gmt":"2018-06-17T21:22:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/?p=5645"},"modified":"2018-06-26T10:39:45","modified_gmt":"2018-06-26T14:39:45","slug":"365172-4-solar-savings-principles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/365172-4-solar-savings-principles\/","title":{"rendered":"365+#172: 4 Solar Savings Principles"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Yea! A couple days ago our new solar panels were activated. This is probably the opposite of my recent Keep it Simple post<\/a><\/span>, because it wasn\u2019t a simple or cheap endeavor, but it was worth it. Over a year ago we started thinking about getting solar panels for our roof. We contacted an installer, got a bid, and then procrastinated for about 9 months until another email offer woke us up. Now we were ready and we moved expeditiously.<\/p>\n

After confirming that our roof was in good enough shape and checking out the payback timing we decided to invest in 16 panels. It took about 2 months and a hunk of money but we considered these 4 principles:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. It takes money to save money<\/strong>. Of course saving money over the long haul is good and applies to paying more if the higher quality product means it will last longer and be better for the environment.<\/li>\n
  2. Doing our part.\u00a0<\/strong>But, the bigger motivation was that although we can\u2019t single handedly reverse global warming, we can do our part.<\/li>\n
  3. The multiplier principle.<\/strong> As more people buy into solar, the multiplier effect kicks in and makes a bigger impact on reducing greenhouse gases plus reduces the cost because of economy of scale. (Caveat: We were also lucky that we moved fast enough that we bought the panels which were manufactured in China before Trump\u2019s tariff goes into effect saving us more than $4,000.)<\/li>\n
  4. \n
    \"\"<\/a>

    Solar panels on Marianist sisters’ convent, Ranchi, India. Click to enlarge.<\/p><\/div>\n

    We\u2019re not first, but we won\u2019t be the last<\/strong>. As proud as I am to now be contributing to part of the solution for global climate change, I was humbled 6 months ago (January 2018) to observe that the retreat center I was staying at in Ranchi, India was powered by solar panels. Several years earlier I had visited a newly constructed school and parish in a nearby rural area of India that was completely powered by solar. Many of the smart developing countries are leap-frogging carbon based energy sources and going straight to renewables, just like they\u2019ve skipped landline phone installations\u00a0and adopted cell phones as their primary phones.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \"\"<\/a>I\u2019m happy. Our house is happy. We expect to power about 95% of our electricity needs from the sun. According to the team of scientists led by Paul Hawken, rooftop solar installation ranks #10 among the top 100 ways to reverse global warming by 2050 \u2013 <\/strong>Drawdown<\/em>\u2014The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming <\/em><\/a>\u00a0<\/span>(Jim and I have just finished the training to lead Drawdown workshops<\/a><\/span> \u00a0Contact me if you want to learn more.)<\/p>\n

    How have you saved energy (electrical or human) through modern technology? Has it cost more to do it? How did you decide?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Yea! A couple days ago our new solar panels were activated. This is probably the opposite of my recent Keep it Simple post, because it wasn\u2019t a simple or cheap endeavor, but it was worth it. Over a year ago we started thinking about getting solar panels for our roof. We contacted an installer, got […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[28,6],"class_list":["post-5645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-days-365","tag-electronics","tag-recycling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5645"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5645\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5660,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5645\/revisions\/5660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}