National Grid’s Solar Energy Phase II Plan: Not Best Option for Towns and Schools

 It is far better to use the Green Communities Act to install your own energy and utilize it completely for town and school options and sell the excess back to the smart grid-being put in place and receive renewable energy credits from the utilities. This smart grid will allow users to schedule when they want to use electricity at off hours when the rates are cheaper and when in the case of solar or wind power you have excess capacity. These new meters will allow you to closely monitor your consumption.

We can not emphasize that you need to act fast and nimbly, as the Clean Energy Choice Program will end June 30, 2009. That program gave $3.8M to MA communities over its life and sadly maybe your community did not act so received no funding- a lost opportunity.

• In Massachusetts (with National Grid) our electricity prices are rising fast. We rank fourth in the country for overall electricity prices- a cost that burdens residents (the elderly in particular) and drives out local businesses.

Who is participating in the Green Communities Act?

To name a few towns: Worcester, Framingham, Marlborough, Westwood, Falmouth, Milford, Hyannis, Sutton, Buzzards Bay, and the MA Maritime Academy

1.      The William F.Stanley- Elementary School-Waltham, MA

2.      Yarmouth Town Hall – solar  Photovoltaic Cells (PVCs)

3.       WestWood Fire Department –(PVCs)

4.      Chilton , MA- Wind Turbine

Solar electricity pricing is getting cheaper:

Key Points to derives from this:

Your solar electricity cost is far less expensive from your own installations and is less expensive than standard grid power in MA, New York, San Diego, San Francisco, Las Vegas, and Phoenix.

Solar is an area where costs are improving fast. Availability of crystalline silicon the material used in most solar panels is coming down in price quickly, thanks in part to rising production capacity. In addition solar panel factories are now far   more cost efficient and several manufacturers like Evergreen Solar are manufactured right here in Marlborough, MA. Yet, wind is still the cheaper alternative. Don’t believe the old saw you don’t have enough wind to run a Wind Turbine. Take a look at the 900 MW wind turbine at the Holy Name School in Worcester.

One of the principal energy planners, at an energy consultancy firm told us to many people pay someone to tell them there is insufficient wind and they do little more than look at a wind map or take a wind measurement from the ground, wind measurement must be taken at 200-300 meters off the ground to get adequate wind measurements with a tool called an anemometer over a period of time. Wind varies widely by month with June being the least windy month, and wind varies by wind sheer created by trees and buildings.  The local firm tell us that with new designs in low wind turbine technology many places once thought to have inadequate wind can now provide sufficient output and at more a reasonable cost than solar.

Image via Wikipedia

Image via Wikipedia