There's
always some ecological endeavor going on in my existence, but since
January, I've been keeping mum about my biggest, most serious investment
in the environment yet. It's something I've been hoping to do ever
since I moved into this house, and it finally happened! Can you guess
what it is? I'll give you a hint: you probably won't find it too
shocking, but it will certainly be electrifying!
Do you give up? (I'm pretending you haven't read the title of this post).
OK!
It's that I got my house hooked up with solar panels! I'm officially running on renewable energy!
 |
| Here's me sunning myself on my newly multipurpose roof! (I really was up there for a legitimate reason, not just a needlessly risky photoshoot!) |
The
plan had been in the works since summer of last year, but good things
take time. It wasn't until late January that I had a functioning rooftop
solar array. I'm now almost 7 months into my solar-powered life, and I
can tell you it's stellar.
Get it? Stellar? Huh huh huh?
The
actual process of getting solar panels was so uninteresting that I
won't detail it here (it mainly involved signing a lot of contracts and
forking over painful amounts of money every few months), but I'll
happily field questions from anyone who's interested in setting up their
own home solar system (planets not included!).
Now that I think about it, the period after
going solar was also uninteresting. My panels basically just sit up
there on my roof and, well, sit there. The first few months, I wasn't
sure they were even working because I was unclear on the complex
financial dance between me and my solar cells, the power company, and
the free market. But after a short delay, my electric bills went way
down. And then a few months after that, I began receiving payments for
all the surplus power my system was generating!
You'd
think that with all that free money rolling in, I'd be ready to cut
loose and burn electricity like there was no tomorrow, but, if the
initial estimates hold true, I still have 8 years before I'll break even
on my initial investment. So until then, it's business as usual. In
fact, I'm bound and determined to conserve electricity more than I did
before—because once you go green, why not go greener? So it's been an
interesting summer—thanks to coronavirus quarantines, I've been home
twice as much, but trying to use half the electricity.
