We were extremely honored to showcase our house this past Saturday as Tampa Bay’s Featured Home on American Solar Energy Society's National Solar Tour. Although this is the tour’s fourteenth year, this was the first one locally. The tour began at the University of South Florida’s Clean Energy Research Center with speakers presenting information about solar energy. After an hour, it kicked into high gear and everyone dispersed. With four busloads visiting us (two at once, at one point) and a number of independent explorers, we estimate more than 150 people dropped by to check out our solar solution.
This is what they came to see:
1 SMA Sunny Boy SB5000US Photovoltaic Inverter
22 Sharp ND-U224C1 224W solar panels
1 SMA Sunny Island 5048U Inverter
8 Discover EV305A Lead Acid Batteries
1 Alternative Energy Technologies AE-28 4x7 Solar Water Collector
2 SunRise 1050 Solar-powered Attic Fans
Since our go-live in mid-July, we’ve generated an average of about 22 kWh a day, which is about a third of what it takes to power our home in the summer. We recently had a 24 hour window in which we didn’t need any air conditioning, and the system came very close to providing all of our electricity needs (we netted a take of four kWh from TECO).
I spent the day explaining numbers like this, the return-on-investment model, how the system operates, and answering everyone’s questions. I even spoke to WMNF when they came by. It was a lot of fun and hope I can participate again in some way next year.
