As ever Bonnie does effective research on the maths behind the solution needed to carry suppliers with her. Solar is a good start if you can use it or store and use it later.
Most of the suppliers took a cookie-cutter approach to my request for proposals. They've got a canned way of doing solar to plug some numbers into. The proposals are meant to look impressive to most people, but the numbers in most of them are only about utility cost savings and return on investment.
Only two suppliers actually came to look at the property before sending a proposal. Only the one we ultimately engaged took a detailed look and got into a detailed conversation about what our goals, priorities and concerns are. For example, our house catches the wind full-on in winter. I told each supplier I wanted to be sure the panels will be okay with that. Only the supplier we engaged included in their proposal thorough weight loading and wind loading calculations, and specifics about how the panels would be anchored to cope with wind loading.
As with so much in life, I didn't realize how much there is to think about when getting a solar PV system until I set out to pursue one!
As ever Bonnie does effective research on the maths behind the solution needed to carry suppliers with her. Solar is a good start if you can use it or store and use it later.
Most of the suppliers took a cookie-cutter approach to my request for proposals. They've got a canned way of doing solar to plug some numbers into. The proposals are meant to look impressive to most people, but the numbers in most of them are only about utility cost savings and return on investment.
Only two suppliers actually came to look at the property before sending a proposal. Only the one we ultimately engaged took a detailed look and got into a detailed conversation about what our goals, priorities and concerns are. For example, our house catches the wind full-on in winter. I told each supplier I wanted to be sure the panels will be okay with that. Only the supplier we engaged included in their proposal thorough weight loading and wind loading calculations, and specifics about how the panels would be anchored to cope with wind loading.
As with so much in life, I didn't realize how much there is to think about when getting a solar PV system until I set out to pursue one!
Your last two sentences sum up what we need to do. Sometimes the people need to lead the so-called leaders.