Tag Archives: solar panels

Green Home Trends: From Baby Steps to Extreme Updates

Posted on May 24, 2012 | Leave a comment

Recycling is one thing, but a composting toilet? That’s when you know you’re taking the going-green trend to its, um, “natural” conclusion.

While many home owners and builders are beginning to make changes to homes to incorporate eco-friendly products and materials, these are just the bud of the going-green trend. To really get the low-down on what the seriously green-minded homeowners can do to help the cause, we’ve rounded up a list of fixes that can be done in a house, whether it was built in 1912 or 2012.

Contact the appraisers at www.scappraisalserv.com for your value questions regarding green updating and how it adds value to your home.

Update your bulbs

You’re going to have to change out your standard incandescent bulbs eventually. This year marked the first stage of phasing out 100-watt incandescent bulbs under the CLEAN Energy Act, but 70-, 60- and 40-watt bulbs are next on the chopping block. Switching to compact fluorescent lights (CFL) or LEDs not only conserves significant electricity, but significant savings as well — more than $57 over the life of the CFL, one report found.

Energy-star appliances

One of the simplest ways to upgrade your home in a green way is to purchase an energy-saving appliance. The best bet is to find one that earns the government’s “Energy Star” rating. The appliances are designed to reduce greenhouse emissions as well as your energy usage over time. Many products can mean tax rebates for your green efforts.

Disclaimer: for information and entertainment purposes only

Solar Panels from China Could Face Tariffs

Posted on March 24, 2012 | Leave a comment

The U.S. Commerce Department plans to slap import tariffs on Chinese-made solar cells in a trade dispute that has strained relations between the two countries and divided the American solar power industry.

The tariffs, proposed Tuesday, follow complaints that the Chinese government has given its solar companies an unfair advantage in the international race to dominate the industry, supplying low-cost loans and land for new factories.

Those factories have swamped the global market with cheap solar cells, slashing the price by 60 percent last year and driving competitors out of business. Three U.S. solar companies, including Fremont’s Solyndra, plunged into bankruptcy in 2011.

disclaimer: for information and entertainment purposes only

Creating Electricity at Home

Posted on January 19, 2012 | Leave a comment

It may appear counter-intuitive, but getting millions of solar panels onto rooftops saves more money than it costs. Feed-in tariffs enacted by state governments have enabled ordinary Australians using their savings to build a solar power station at home benefiting the community.

Contact the appraisers at www.socalappraisalserv.com for your value questions.

When those solar households who had saved to get their panels installed under the solar feed-in tariff programs export their solar production to the grid, which occurs mostly during higher demand daytime periods, they are given a slightly higher than average retail rate for the electricity they are selling. The prices they have been paid are relatively meagre when compared with the ridiculously high rates paid to big coal or gas power plants.

At the same time that little solar households who have invested their money in a rooftop power station are being paid between 44¢ and 60¢ per kilowatt hour, the old power companies with their dirty belching coal and gas plants are receiving as much as $12.50.

Disclaimer: for information and entertainment purposes only.