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Author Archives: Kevin Wilcox
Planning for Climate Change: Test your backup generator!
Ok preppers, here’s the second installment in my little “planning for climate change” series… For those of you who own portable backup generators, you really need to test them out on a regular basis to make sure everything’s running well. … Continue reading
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Planning for Climate Change. First in a series
I’ve been saying for quite some time now that “global warming is about more energy in weather systems”. But what does that mean from a practical perspective? In short, it means that we can expect our weather to intensify. Temperature … Continue reading
Posted in Our Fragile Planet
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The Dawn of GOP and Trump.
Here I am on the 9th of November contemplating an election victory that handed congress, the presidency and soon the supreme court to the GOP. America looks like this to me currently: Dow Jones 18,300 my retirement nest egg value: … Continue reading
Posted in Politics
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Here’s a new renewable energy storage option.
What’s popping up in my news feeds thanks to the Climate Change conference is incredibly interesting! Here’s a new energy storage system now being tested off Lake Ontario. Makes sense given all those wind turbines we saw travelling through the … Continue reading
Posted in Energy
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Tesla’s battery for your home
I found this article while surfing the web today. Sadly, the utilities themselves who could be embracing/profiting the most from this technology are actually the ones who are trying to squash it the most. By building a smart grid that … Continue reading
Posted in Energy
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WE Energies to Squash Distributed Renewables with their latest rate case.
Their current rate case being considered by the Public Service Commission proposes that on January 1, 2016 all Customer generation rate schedules will go to the following: COGS-NM Tariff Capacity demand charge of 3.794/month/KW installed Facilities charge of 3.32/month for … Continue reading
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Surge Protecting PV Arrays
My original design called for surge protection and I was getting sick and tired of powering down the array every time the weather looked threatening. So I decided to remedy the situation before leaving on a two week vacation. SPDs … Continue reading
The bottom line on our Solar Installation
Here’s the final breakdown for our Solar project (minus the required occasional trips to Home Depot…). The bottom line is really quite good if you ask me! Do your own research on this then consider DIY Solar. Its time! Click … Continue reading
Installing the 3KW addition
The 3 KW expansion required the addition of 6 more Renusol racks. Each pair secured four 265W Suniva panels. The rails themselves were fastened to the roof using EcoFasten GF flashing at 4 points. Every other rail landed on an … Continue reading
The 3KW expansion
It’s started! I got an estimate for $8,850 yesterday and am meeting with our contractor on the 25th to submit my down payment/go over logistics. We will be using the same panels/inverters/mounting system and once again, I’ll be doing the … Continue reading