I was thinking about feeling out different renewable energy companies for cost, top quality products, customer service etc.
I was thinking about sending the same ready to move house plan to all of them and getting a quote.
I'm not familiar with all the companies that service my area however.
Any suggestions would I should be asking for a quote? Name and contact info would be great!
I was familiar with Solar Outpost in Saskatoon and have received a quote from them on ground source heat pumps, grey water recycling, and photovoltaics.
Basically I want to put out to green energy companies: how would you power my house?!
Meggan -
ReplyDeleteLook at all the companies on the relevant lists at Saskatchewan's Green Directory: www.saskatchewangreendirectory.org . Obviously some have been longer-established than others, and some have better reputations, but it wouldn't be appropriate for me to say any more than that in this forum.
But one really really important thing. Until you know how much heat you are going to be using, you shouldn't be asking for quotes for heating equipment. Until you know how much electricity you are going to be using, you shouldn't be asking for quotes for electrical installations. At least on the heating side, that means that you _first_ get your building design together - or else set energy targets which you are not going to relax as the design process proceeds.
If you don't do it this way round, you can end up with two problems:
(i) the installer will have to guess on the size of installation required, and, just to be on the safe side, will probably guess too high - then you will have paid for a whole lot of kit that you don't need. (This is not uncommon - I've seen a lot of oversized furnaces in buildings in this province.)
(ii) you don't get to choose the best technology for the size of application. For example, there are circumstances in which solar space heating can work very well, but others in which it is not able to contribute efficiently. Or take GSHPs (so-called "geothermal") - they can be appropriate under certain carefully-defined conditions, but are usually ecologically-inappropriate in this province because of the heavy dependence on coal of our electricity grid, and likely to be an extremely expensive option if you use your own home-generated electricity instead.
So I strongly urge you - get the building design together first, cut down the predicted energy consumption as low as you reasonably can, and only then address the question of how to supply it.
Mark
The reason, why I recommend that guide is because it has solid information about home wind and solar power is not inimical, neither is it detrimental to our environment. So how does solar power work? Solar power works through photovoltaics.
ReplyDeleteThanks everyone for your comments. Good points to consider.
ReplyDeleteWhere I am at or what I was trying to address is BUDGET. It is very important for me to understand costs from the start. This was my plan / intention - pick a design and start putting some feelers out for ideas of how to heat/power it renewably and the costs. I am in the info / cost gathering stage.
So Mark as I move forward in my process how would you suggest to determine how much heat / electricity you need without getting too nitty gritty / limiting future plans. For instance my household is two now but will be larger in the future.
ReplyDelete