(no subject)

[mattlistener.livejournal.com]

I'm an NSTAR Electric customer, as I'm sure are many of us. This winter I looked into competing electric suppliers, identified four via NSTAR's website, and called them all. They all said they were not offering residential service, though 2 or 3 said they were planning to and I should call again in the Spring.

Today when I went to that link (based on the "Rate A1-Residential" keyword on my bill), I found only one competitive supplier, Dominion. They said they had had an offer out for new residential customers, but it's now closed.

Does anyone know of other options for us? We're interested to know about any cheaper and/or greener alternatives to NSTAR.

Also, there's a house on Highland Road with a bunch of solar panels on the roof which gets us thinking about solar sometimes -- can anyone recommend a vendor thereof, or a good starting point? I doubt we're up for much of a DIY component, but we should definitely look at the economics of a full installation deal. Running the meter backwards would have a nice feeling to it as well. :-)

Thanks!

Comments

[turil.livejournal.com]

One way to go with solar is to get one panel and hook it up to one or two 12 volt batteries (with a, umm... thingy... ummm, yeah, it's called a "controller", in the middle to regulate the current) and then use the batteries to power small things. It takes a little knowhow, but not too much. My husband set up an 80 watt panel on the roof overhang of our last apartment (right outside our window, so no climbing on the roof!) and I ran my laptop off of it and sometimes my boombox, and I charged my AA batteries (for small electronics, like my bike lights) this way too. It wasn't a huge deal, but it at least kept some of my energy use green. I think my husband only paid $350 for the panel, but I think he got a crazy good deal, and the controller was about $80 I think. I also had to get a special inverter for my iBook, because Apple did some weird thing with the DC power, and it takes 24 volts instead of the nowmal 12 v.