Maintenance & Socket Savings

• BULBS LAST UP TO 5 YEARS @ 5 HOURS OF USE PER DAY
• ADD 30% IN SAVINGS FOR REDUCED AIR CONDITIONING COSTS IN WARM CLIMATES
• SAVING BASED ON 5 HOURS OF USE PER DAY AND $.15/KWH

In the next few years we will see more of these emerge onto the marketplace.  The will continue to develop.  Not entirely sure what the overall costs are yet, but OLEDs hold some potential.

Here is a GE produced video that talk about OLEDs in a broad sense.

I will still have the blog, it will just become a sub of this website.  More to follow.  Thank you for your support.

Dale

Currently here are the incentives, both Federal and Washington.

Federal:
30% tax credit for system brought on line in 2008, with a cap of $2,000 for homes and no cap for businesses.*  Teh credit may be used on solar hot water systems as well as Photo-Voltaic (PV).  You can get $2,000 back from the federal government for a PV system AND $2,000 for a hot water system.  The credits may be extended.  Make sure to encourage your state representatives.

*This is a great option for home run businesses!

State:
A great resource for the most current information is www.northwestsolarcenter.org.

Current incentives as of this posting are:

Net Metering requires the utilities to allow you to hook up to their grid (a requirement to get $ back) with your solar or wind power system.  Your meter can turn backwards up to the amount of electricity that you use on an annual basis.  The summer credit can be used in the dark winter months.  Everytime rates go up, so does the value of your PV system and its electricty.

Sales Tax Exemption for PV equipment and its installation until 2011. Solar Hot Water Systems are also exempt.

There are also Production Incentive Payments which increase when thge equipment for your systems is made in Washington.  Nete Metering currently gets you $.15/kWh for every kWh your grid-tied system produces until July 2014.  While this is voluntary most utilities are onboard.  The money they pay back comes of teh state utility tax, so for them they either pay the state or the customer.  If you buy an invertor made in Washington your incentive is increased by $.03 to $.18/kWh.  If you by PV panels made in Washignton you can add an additional $.35/kWh to the $.18/kWh for a total of $.53/kWh with a yearly cap of $2,000.

There is one catch.  There are no UL rated PV panels currently made in Washington.  One company I meantioned early, Silcon-Energy will soon be available in Washington.

Also, for those that are part of Snohomish County PUD, you will soon be in luck as new incentives will go in effect in the next year.  Stay tuned.

The Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency website provides a searchable comprehensive database of state, local and utility based incentives.

Visit their library to learn more about Federal tax credits and to access links to tax forms.

Technorati Tags: zero energy, solar power

This Home was built in Snohomish County and was a qualified Energy Star home. It also met many of the other programs such as Built Green and won many awards for its construction.

Technorati Tags: built green, energy star

On another note, everyone is greatly concerned about gas and energy prices. I mentioned in an earlier blog that Solar power is making headway in our state and now some of the solar equipment is being manufactured in Washington. I have to agree with many people that Washington is not the sunniest state, but solar power has been making headway and is becoming more efficient and the cost is coming down.

That said, you can get information about solar power in Washington from www.solarwashington.org. There is a wealth of information from products to incentives to installers.

*Buildings Account for 48% of CO2 emissions in the United States —more than either the transportation or industrial sectors, and over the next 25 years, CO2 emissions from buildings are projected to grow faster than any other sector.

*Buildings consume 70% of the electricity load in the U.S.

*The U.S. population and economy are projected to grow significantly over the coming decades, increasing the need for new buildings – to meet this demand, approximately 15 million new buildings are projected to be constructed by 2015.

Home Depot Improvement
Home Depot will collect CFLs for recycling

Home Depot announced last week that it will collect compact fluorescent light bulbs and send them off to be recycled. The home-improvement behemoth hopes the new program will keep the bulbs, which contain a small amount of mercury, out of household trash and recycling bins. IKEA also collects CFLs for recycling but doesn’t have the market saturation of Home Depot; more than three-quarters of U.S. households are estimated to be within 10 miles of a Home Depot store. The company’s 1,973 U.S. stores will also switch to CFLs in light-fixture showrooms by the fall, a move expected to save it $16 million annually in energy costs.