Thursday, April 14, 2011

Battle with the Sun

Many of you know about my off-the-grid home in Maine. It's 100% powered by solar and wind. A few year's back our solar panels were stolen off the roof and it took me 3 weeks to find a new insurance policy. Some of the biggest insurance companies in America told me they would NOT insure a home that was not connected to the grid. They preferred a home that was connected to the grid where solar was a secondary energy source not primary. Even with battery backup (which is what we have). It was not a fun process, and I was horrified to learn how the insurance industry is so against green living in the US.

As it turns out, so are electric companies. I wanted to make you aware of a horrible situation going on right now for Black Dinah Chocolatiers. BDC recently installed solar panels to off-set their electricity costs for the business. They even had professionals install the system. They have received word from their electric company (Isle au Haut Electric) that they need to disconnect their system WITHIN 24 hours or else the company is cutting power to the house/business. This is absurd! Yes, it's a very small self-sufficient island off of Maine. However, that's all the more reason to allow a business to convert to solar for their secondary energy source. 

Have any of you ever heard of such a thing? Everything was done by the books here and this little power company has basically said "not on our island." I thought that power companies were required by law to work with these type of systems. Very upsetting!

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