Making A Solar Home, More Efficient

I've had a solar system on my house for well over a year, and I love it.

Not only does it supply enough electricity for our entire home, but it also helps by cooling the average temperature inside because it's absorbing sunlight that normally would have penetrated our roof (therefore eliminating the need for additional A/C usage).

After attending the NENY New Energy Symposium earlier this month, I've been on a complete PlaNYC kick. So in lieu of mentioning A/C, I'd like to point out some recommended tips from associated program greeNYC, on efficiently cooling your home:

• Purchase an appropriate size A/C for a room to avoid extra, avoidable costs.
• Use a fan to circulate the cool air, so the A/C doesn't have to work as hard.
• Only use the A/C if you're home, otherwise keep it off and save on your bill.
• When you are home, seal off unused rooms and close windows tightly to keep the cold air inside.
• Don't create unnecessary heat, use lights and appliances when you need to- otherwise keep them off!

There are a ton of other tips related to being green at home, at work, on the go, or in your overall lifestyle. It's very well designed and occupied much of my time and attention- if you're interested, check it out!

Moving forward, the system on my roof consists of 28 Sanyo "HIT" 195 watt panels, amounting to 5.46 kW of generated electricity. We don't have a battery storage system yet, so we are feeding our energy back to the utility company, sharing what they generate as well (except not paying for it since costs cancel with our earned credits). Of course this is the primary factor in lowering our utility bill, but the point is that you can still lower your costs by being mindful.

I wanted to share these tips about cooling your home because as I mentioned before, our A/C usage and cost have been lower this summer. Not only because of the solar panels, but also because of making small changes like those listed above, to make our green home more efficient.