Old Lord Kadizzle is sitting in his daughters house. Up on the roof top where Santa normally would be are 12 solar panels. The panels were just hooked up a day ago. One neat aspect of the panels is the data collection. On the giant PC screen the chart can be projected to show what is going on up by the shingles.
Study the chart reveals a lot. The Keurig Coffee maker sucks up over 2,000 watts, when you make a cup of coffee. Luckily it just takes about thirty seconds. You can see the sun rise on the chart. The green, which is power you are producing gradually overcomes the red, which is the power you are buying. In the last two days we saved $3.92 with solar. It appears if one were cautious and conscientious you could probably get pretty close to all the power you need with the 12 panels. However the experiment so far was during very sunny days.
A big observation Kadizzle has made about people an power is the need for feed back. If you have some way of knowing how much power you are using or wasting, you are more inclined to do something about it. Often when camping we hear someone's generator take off and go wild. This usually happens when they use the microwave, hair dryer, or toaster. At Erin's house you see a big red spike in power consumption.
If Kadizzle has learned anything so far it is the fact that solar water heating would probably be the way to go. Such a large amount of power goes into heating water, and making hot water with solar direct is relatively cheap and easy. Combining solar panels with a solar water heater would probably get you farther down the road than any other move for saving energy.
A very high percentage of homes in Erin's neighborhood are being built with solar. A neighbor stopped by who has 20 panels on their roof. Their intention is to get an electric car and use their excess power to run the car.
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