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From: Norm of Bandersnatch (no email)
Date: Fri Jan 12 2007 - 11:11:17 EST
12 Jan 2007
Dear Sir,
I live on a boat and derive about 85% of my electricity needs from seven
photovoltaic panels (totaling 840 watts) and two wind generators, the
remaining 15% coming from a diesel genset in the winter when there is less
daylight and seabreeze.
I did find that the sales tax for my wind generators, purchased in Florida,
is refundable and I am taking steps to apply for that.
However, when I looked for incentives for my investment in the PV
(photovolatic) panels (wind and microhydro should also be included here!) I
found that since I have only 840 watts of panels I am ineligible for
incentives. By reducing my household needs (my refrigerator and my freezer
each draw 25 watts, about the same as the light bulb in most household
units, almost all my lighting is florescent or LED, there are no 120 vac
"ghost loads" so common in most homes, I rarely use my air conditioning or
electric heat which require the use of the genset), I use about 3KW of
electricity per day, about 1/10th of the average household use of 29.6KW
per day (Google).
Furthermore, I use about 200 gallons of water per MONTH, which I obtain
through the use of a reverse osmosis device filtering the water I float in.
Most folks use 500 gallons of water per DAY drawn from the Florida aquifer.
I think the policy of providing incentives only for PV systems of 2 KW
system size or greater is short sighted, ALL steps in the direction of
reducing fossil-fuel consumption should be encouraged. I imagine this
figure was conceived to be the power required to sustain a household, yet I
sustain my household by not only harvesting natural and renewal sources of
energy, but by reducing my total energy needs as well.
The renewal energy incentives program was created to encourage people to
reduce dependence on fossil fuel and the production of greenhouse gasses.
I am doing just this, and have been for years, in an unusually successfully
manner and I, as well as others like me, deserve to be rewarded by the
program designed to encourage exactly what I am doing.
Very Truly Yours,
Norman Johnson
S/V Bandersnatch
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