37 Fletcher Solar PV Installation

After a good deal of research we decided this year to go ahead and put in Solar Photovoltaics on our roof here in Bedford. This blog describes what we did.

First, I want to thank my colleague, Christopher Mirabile, who did this over a year ago on his house, wrote the process up in detail on his blog, and also helped me understand a lot of the intricacies of the process.

Second, thanks also to EnergySage.com and their CEO, Vikram Aggarwal. I used their system to bid the project out competitively, and actually found my contractor through EnergySage.

Finally, thanks to Dave Simmer, the sales guy for Second Generation Energy, who got the contract largely because his knowledge of the industry and his attention to our needs put him above the rest of the contractors I talked to.

I should mention at this point that all three contractors with whom I spoke at any length were highly committed to renewable energy and exactly the kind of people one expects to find in this industry - intelligent and personable.

As of this writing the system is completed but awaits two final steps before going live. First the Mass Clean Energy Center (CEC) needs to bless some paperwork that authorizes various rebates and benefits. After that, NStar needs to replace our existing meter with one that can do "net metering". The existing meter would treat any electricity our roof generates and pumps into the grid like power we're using, so we'd actually get charged for it. With a net meter, if we pump power into the grid (as we will on sunny days) the meter "runs backward" and we can actually end up with the power company owing us money! Sadly one can't cash out such an excess, so it's best to stay just below that threshold.

Once the system is turned on (a few weeks from now, most likely), I'll post again to say how it went.