Interview with Don McKechnie!

Today, I got to go over to Don McKechnie's house, who my family and I have known for quite some time, and talk to him about his recent solar panel installation! The interview lasted about 20 minutes, and afterwards he showed me how he does the readings, the inverter, the panels themselves, and all that jazz (which I'll explain in a sec).

The solar panels were installed the last weekend in February. Remember when Ithaca got SUPER SUPER cold? Well that was the end of February, and the construction workers from Renovus (the local solar panel company from which they bought their panels) came and cleared off the roof and installed the panels. Pretty incredible eh? However, while the panels were installed in February, the electricity wasn't installed until early April, so they've had working panels since April 6th, 2015.

Jacqueline and Don decided to get solar panels in July when the Solar Tompkins Initiative offered a "deal" of sorts. Their house wasn't actually inspected until October to see if they were eligible to have solar panels.

One main reason they decided to get solar panels was because of financial reasons. While the total cost for installing solar panels was somewhere around $28, 000, they got a lot of money back. Firstly, since more than 300 people signed up as part of the Solar Tompkins Initiative to have solar panels installed, they got $2600 back from Solar Tompkins. Also, MYSERTA gave them a grant of $7,000 right off the bat just for installing solar panels. They also receive $4,000 in state tax rebates and $5,000 in federal tax rebates. This means their total bill was about $10,000.
If these panels are actually saving them money, we don't know yet. They haven't had them long enough to calculate their total savings.

Jacqueline and Don also wanted to be more energy efficient. While they have been doing small things around the house to conserve energy, like replace the windows, doors, insulation, and eliminate the dampness in their basement, this was a bigger step they felt like they had to take.

How the panels work:
Don and Jacqueline have an account online where they can see how much their panels produce (pictures 1 and 2). The energy that's produced by the panels gets shuttled to the inverter in their garage (picture 3). The first number that comes up on the reader is how many watts are being produced and being directed into the inverter to be used at that moment (picture 4). The second number that pops up is how many watts are being pushed back into NYSEG's electrical system (picture 5). The more energy is pushed back into NYSEG's system, the more credits they receive from NYSEG, which allows them to use energy for less money when there are cloudy days, rainy days, or wintery days.
Picture 6 shows what the panels look like on top of their house!

It was a real treat to interview Don, especially since I don't get to talk to him as much as Jacqueline.
I'm hoping to interview Carrie tomorrow! We finally found a time that works for both of us.