[Lindengardens] Power?

[Andres Salomon]

I went to a nice seminar a year or two ago at someone's house near davis
sq about the cost of solar panels (as well as solar thermal for hot
water heating), and the tax rebates available.  Once the roof has been
redone, it's possible for us to get panels that will pay for themselves
over the course of 5 years or so (after a gov't tax rebate anywhere
from 50% to 75%).  This would be tied into nstar's infrastructure, and
actually feed power to the neighbors during peak times (assuming the
building wasn't using it all).  The nstar meters would basically run
backwards, and nstar would pay us as if we were a power distributor.  I
believe they're only willing to pay w/ credits, though.. Ie, they
wouldn't give us cash, but we'd get most or all of our power for free.

Anyways, just thought it was worth mentioning.  Having power generation
on the roof means we wouldn't have to worry about daytime outages (just
nighttime ones.. unless we had batteries to store power overnight).

For people w/ computers, I'd suggest a UPS battery backup for your
equipment (and cable/dsl modem).  They're pretty cheap (I think mine
was $70), and they'll keep your computers running for 5-15 mins while
the power's out.

http://www.buyonlinenow.com/viewProduct.asp?SKU=APWBE550G&tk=541137

And just remember, in lean times there's always Verizon as a free
power source!  ;)

http://www.instructables.com/id/FREE-Hidden-Electricity!/




On Sat, 13 Feb 2010 03:00:13 +0000 (UTC)
Chris De Angelis <deangelc at comcast.net> wrote:

> It might be worth mentioning that I saw a documentary recently on
> America's crumbling infrastructure, and one of the things highlighted
> was the power grid. It was a great achievement when it was completed,
> but is now in bad shape - as witnessed, for example, by the blackout
> of 5 or 6 years ago leaving millions in the northeast without power.
> The documentary also said we can probably expect more brownouts in
> years to come as power companies struggle to prevent the massive
> blackouts like the one I mentioned. 
> 
> I don't want to incite panic about this, but the fact is our power
> system is overloaded and if this doesn't turn out to be a glitch with
> something affecting our building specifically, we might not be able
> to do much besides chalk it up to the strain on the power grid during
> the highest demand times (summer, followed by winter). Of course we
> could report it to NSTAR, but I don't think they would do much about
> it unless it turned out to be a problem on a greater scale. 
> 
> Chris 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "David Santucci" <santucci at brandeis.edu> 
> To: lindengardens at mit.edu 
> Sent: Friday, February 12, 2010 6:59:31 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada
> Eastern Subject: Re: [Lindengardens] Power? 
> 
> I guess we should try to talk to one of our neighbors and find out
> whether it's isolated to our building. On Fri, Feb 12, 2010 at 4:53
> PM, Jordan Price wrote: > It went off again for a few seconds this
> afternoon. I think it was at > around 12:00-12:30 > > On Feb 12,
> 2010, at 4:40 PM, Andres Salomon wrote: > > > I noticed last night's
> blink, as well as one a couple weeks ago.. > > That's about it. > > >
> > > > On Fri, 12 Feb 2010 13:35:13 -0800 (PST) Aaron Federman > >
> > > > wrote: > > > >> This morning, I noticed the power went out for
> > > > about 5 seconds at > >> 7:30 or so. Has it gone out more times
> > > > throughout the day? > >> > >> Aaron > >> > >> > >> > >> -----
> > > > Original Message ---- > >> From: Jordan Price > >> To:
> > > > lindengardens at mit.edu > >> Sent: Fri, February 12, 2010 1:04:28
> > > > PM > >> Subject: [Lindengardens] Power? > >> > >> Does anyone
> > > > know why the power keeps going out? > >> > >> - Jordan > >>
> > > > Unit 13 > >> _______________________________________________ >
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> > > > >> http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/lindengardens > >> >
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