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SUN & WIND NEWSLETTER
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Happy Summer Solstice! May this longest day of the year find you enjoying sunshine, light breezes, juicy strawberries, beach walks at low tide, and all the other wonders of summer. |
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Ch-ch-changes
Whidbey Island is enjoying a renewable energy boom. WSW is working overtime (literally!) to meet our community's desire to live more lightly on the planet and utilize the clean energy so conveniently at hand.
Kelly is still the power center of WSW. He is hard at work doing Site Evaluations and Consultations, designing renewable systems, and overseeing installations. An able team of installers assists Kelly in the field. Our new office manager, Lori, holds down the fort in Coupeville.
We are in dire need of another designer/installer on staff to meet the marvelous demand for renewable energy on Whidbey Island. If you or anyone you know has PV, solar hot water, and wind design experience and certifications, get in touch with us, yesterday. | |
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Watch this Website
Speaking of changes, you'll want to have a look at www.whidbeysunwind.com from time to time. We've dusted it off, tidied it up, and brought the information up to date. More importantly, we'll continue to update it. The 'events' page is a list of timely sustainable happenings with an emphasis on the local. The long-awaited 'FAQ' page answers the main questions we get from folks considering renewable energy. You can explore manufacturer websites with links from our 'products' pages or spend countless hours perusing interesting internet sites by taking off from our 'links' page. Let us know what you think. We welcome feedback on both usability and content. | |
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2007 National Solar Tour
Saturday, October 6 is the date of this year's National Solar Tour. WSW is once again the local tour coordinator. Last year's tour was a marvelous success thanks to the hospitality of everyone who welcomed visitors to their homes. Over 100 people took advantage of the opportunity to drop in and see what renewable energy is all about. This year we would like to have tour sites from South Whidbey, up through Fidalgo Island, and even on to Guemes Island, with lots of stops in between. Homes will demonstrate a variety of sustainable living techniques -- renewable energy production, energy efficiency, recycled building materials, resource conservation. We hope to have it all There are three ways that you can participate in the tour:
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Credits, Exemptions, Incentives -- Oh My!
While Washington State isn't quite as RE-friendly as California or New Jersey, Washingtonians can take advantage of tax credits, tax exemptions, and production incentives.
We get a tax break from the federal government through 2008 with a 30% credit on solar hot water (except pool heating) and PV systems. For residential installations, the credit is capped at $2000. There isn't a cap on the credit for commercial systems.Materials and installation of solar electric, solar hot water, wind, and micro-hydro power are all exempt from Washington State sales tax. This exemption will last until 2011. PSE customers who generate power with grid-tied solar PV arrays, wind turbines or anaerobic digesters are eligible for production incentives as high as 54 cents/kilowatt-hour up to a maximum of $2000 per year. This program is currently legislated to run through June 2014. Owners of residential wind or PV systems may also earn 5 cents/kilowatt-hour for every kWh produced and net-metered back into the energy grid by selling Green Tags through Northwest Solar Co-op. Payments continue for 5 years from signing of contract. For links to more information, see www.whidbeysunwind.com/incentive.html | |
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Think Globally, Eat Locally
Unless you're a regular road warrior, your food is logging more miles than you are. In the US, your dinner travels an average of 1500 miles to your table. Most of those are highway miles, but refrigerated jumbo jets also transport southern hemisphere-grown food to consumers in the northern hemisphere. In cold hard numbers, transportation of food in the US uses a staggering 1.4 quadrillion Btu's annually. To add insult to injury, the processing and packaging of food also consumes massive amounts of energy in the US -- about 2.4 quadrillion Btu's annually.
Buying organic, locally-grown, minimally-processed food is a simple way to reduce fossil fuel use and reduce CO2 emissions. Summer is farmers' market season so it's prime time to change your food purchasing and eating habits. Visit www.whidbeysunwind.com/events.html for information on our local markets.
You might also participate in a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program. You sign up, purchase your share, and then pick up or have delivered a bag, box, or basket of food weekly. Some CSA's also produce a newsletter or provide recipes. A quick check of Local Harvest's search function pulled up listings for CSA's from one end of Whidbey Island to the other. Visit www.localharvest.org to find a Community Supported Agriculture program near you.
Data for this article was gleaned from:www.sustainabletable.org/issues/energy/ www.earth-policy.org/Updates/2005/Update48.htm |
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Copyright © 2003-2008 Whidbey Sun & Wind, LLC. All rights reserved. |