NH Electric Rates Doubling August 1st...
 

NH Electric Co-op up 77%...Eversource up 112%...Liberty Utilities up 100%.

This is going to have a drastic affect on inflation in New Hampshire.

The cost of charging that energy-saving EV just doubled...:eek:

https://www.wmur.com/article/electri...hire/40710637#

But the value of those solar panels just doubled too! As I've written before, they are like an ATM on the roof :)

For those interested in solar, one important point on the calendar--this year the federal tax credit is 26%. In other words, if you spend $50,000 on solar, you immediately get a tax reduction of $13,000. This falls to 22% on Jan 1, so if you're considering solar, you'll save $2,000 or so by signing a deal this year instead of next.

For those who would like solar but do not have the cash available--it is easy to get financing so that you are cash neutral or positive the whole time.

I'm with Eversource, but selected to have North American for the actual source of power, and Eversource as he local distributor.
https://www.napower.com/#gref

Signed up with NA Power at 18.59 cent PKW for 14mo contract, this is still better than Eversource proposed rate of 22.56 PKH

Hey, every little bit helps !

THE single most important factor in solar for the end user is the contract with the provider!

Will they stand responsible for all repairs associated with solar panel and its install?

AND, who will be responsible in X to X years down the road to replace AND cover the costs of disposal of the panels? Yes disposal, because if you have not heard or read, it is expected that the disposal costs for solar panels will exceed their cost to sell to you! The LA Times recently cited the environmental disaster in the making in California, and they are in an almost ideal location for panel longevity, whereas New England is kinda the opposite.

Sadly solar is only a solution because of market manipulation and government intervention paid for by our ever increasing property taxes. Because every non-solar power company customer and tax payer is subsidizing other peoples solar costs. Oh and the fact that NO ONE is talking about or yet paying for the cost of clean disposal of end of life panels!

Most such "better" green options all have a dark side that their advocates dismiss and bury their heads in the sand over. To date the only truly effective greening programs are, ZPG, the toxic use reduce program, and the reuse/recycle programs. Most other efforts actually turn out to be more dirty than anyone is ever told, because no one looks at the cradle to grave lifecycle.

Nothing is perfect, certainly not oil/coal, but there are way more hidden pitfalls in all the so called green technologies than most will ever know.

Actual green will take a different form than solar panels, windmills, and oil/coal. Sorry not offering answers, just pulling the cover of the lies of green power, its still a myth.

ATB

Yup, Cannot believe how much "better" we are doing now.

Solar for many is about being independent.

And so long as people accept the responsibility for properly disposing of the panels, so be it, but dont dump your dead panels in some land fill and tell me you are going green. Its not legitimate.

The generation charge has doubled, which will probably increase your bill around 20 to 30%.

The green agenda is mostly responsible for this. I see a lot of "climate now" signs around this area. If you have one of those signs or if you donate to a green lobbying group, which is what they all are. This is what they lobby for, increased energy costs, in a misguided notion that if fossil energy costs more it makes green energy more appealing. Unfortunately increasing tbe cost of fossil energy without any viable replacement just makes everything else cost more and leaves the less fortunate amongst us with crippling energy bills.

The service side would be wages and cost of materials...
The supply side would be the cost of natural gas.

For NH, most of the electricity sold by the operators is natural gas with nuclear running second.

For renewables it would be wood.

While Class II has a higher rate, it has a very low percentage requirement meaning minimum impact.

Class III has about have the rate, but is eleven times the percentage requirement.

And I will add, that actual widely available truly green power is not really available, it remains at this time, a myth.

EV's are NOT green regardless where the recharge power comes from because lithium batteries are one of the most environmental damaging products ever devised by man. And if in addition to that, the recharge power should come from a coal powered power plant, now your in the neighborhood of leaded gasoline, HORRIBLE!

Sadly solar is not the answer either.

There will be a green power some day, some day,,,

Until then, think more along the lines of ZPG, TUR, Reuse/Recycle, and better cradle to grave future planning.

ATB

While you're wringing your hands and bellyaching with conspiracy theories, my solar roof is saving me thousands of dollars a year, with virtually no maintenance.

Folks interested in solar should speak with a reputable local installer to get the economics of their own roof

My son just bought a house in NH with 5 kw of solar. He pays nothing for the generation portion of his bill most of the year. He has a great location for solar. My location, not so much.

No conspiracy theories, just fact that you can chose to and take the time to educate yourself on, or bury your head in a swim noodle.

And when you are saving those thousands of dollars a year, I hope you are setting aside a reasonable amount for proper disposal costs as the dead panels are now being classified as hazardous materials in many places and there will soon be hefty costs to have them properly recycled. Or maybe you just plan to bury them in your backyard or drop them off in the middle of the lake???

And by all means, when you talk to your reputable solar dealer (who has probably not been in business very long nor will be) please ask them to include in your contract the cost to remove and properly recycle the dead panels at the end of their life. Oh and make sure they have some kind of policy/bond/surety to actually pay for it when they are out of business and long gone and you are stuck with the burden and the bill to deal with the mess!

ATB

Again, if he is paying nothing for power, he should be setting money aside from the savings for the future when the panels will need to be replaced and properly disposed of/recycled, or risk getting hit with a big bill he never dreamed of,,,

Big bill? Solar panels are mostly silicon, there isn't a big recycle demand because they last a long time. Most lose somewhere between 0.5 and 1 percent efficiency per year. So they don't stop working unless something happens to them to cause them to fail. At some point they may not produce enough power to meet the needs of whomever is using them. But the thing is there are ways to mitigate this. 5kw of panels may become less useful to someone who needs all that power, but there are people who would love to have panels that produce say 3 kw of power. So there is a market for these less than ideal panels.

The other thing is people with a bone to pick, insist that things like solar panels must be recycled. I'm fine with recycling them, I'm ok with throwing them in a hole and covering them up too. As far as things that make it to landfills, solar panels are very low on the danger list IMO.

Also I don't know what this "huge bill he never dreamed of " sounds pretty alarmist to me. This place will come to your house and carry your panel away starting an $89 per panel. Hardly outrageous.

https://goloadup.com/what-we-take/ap.../solar-panels/

As far as my son goes, his panels were free, paid for by the previous owner of his house. It's a total win for him and he is reaping the benefits that the owner and indirectly you and I paid for. Good for him.

Exactly what I’ve been saying for a couple years! Well said!

Well for the moment you can just dig a hole in the ground and bury them, but not for long,,,

Lots of information amassing about the dark side of solar. And virtually all honest assessments are citing expected higher disposal costs in the near future, as dead panels are piling up everywhere and we are becoming more aware of the environmental challenges this will create.

You might remember that asbestos was 100% safe and the ultimate insulation material, only to end up costing home owners who got stuck with it tens of thousands of dollars to clean up and dispose of,,,

Its coming, prepare for it or not, your choice, but its coming!

You are making me defend solar here, lol. But I say hogwash. The panels are no more dangerous than disposing of the billions of windows, mirrors and other similar things. You can make that argument for just about every human product if you try. Many of those are bogus claims too.

The real argument against solar is that when you need it the most it's not there, the sun is set or behind the clouds or so low on the horizon the output is negligible. Useful hours of solar power here are 5.33 peak solar hours in the summer, 3.66 peak solar hours in the winter. Full sun days per year average about 90 per year. Average annual sunlight hours are 2,500. The number of hours in a year is about 8,760. So you need other power when the sun is down or not producing enough power, which is 6,260 hours per year, or more than 70% of the time, solar is useless at those times.

There's more, I could go on , but focus there, not on some dumb scare tactic about disposal that is irrelevant.

This is a fair point with respect to society as a whole and the electric grid as a whole. But that's NHEC/Eversource's problem to solve. Back to the opportunity of putting solar on your own roof...

When a person puts solar on their roof, the power generated flows into the grid as a whole. When they are producing more than their home needs, their electric meter turns in reverse ("net metering"). In this way the grid acts as a giant battery for the homeowner--your excess power goes to your neighbor, and your electric bill is lowered as a result. My electric bill is negative from about April to September, then I run that credit down over the winter.

For people interested in solar for their own roof--any good installer can explain exactly how this math will work at your house with your electric provider and their rate structure.

Because it is grid tied, someone is using the power, and we shutter the marginal fuel - natural gas.

Flying, would you please be good enough to share with us the contact information on your solar experts? Thanks.
Sue

I can assure you I didnt make it up, and its not about how dangerous it actually is, its about who will be the next person to make money off the working man.

Dead panels are already being classified as hazardous waste, not by me, by local and state governments. Look it up yourself.

And there are costs to dispose of them NOW. AND those costs are expected to rise dramatically. It is expected to be a big industry, so if you are looking to make some money on this matter, run with this one!

In the end, I have no personal investment either way, I dont have solar panels and dont really care if you get it, but it is not truly green and it will cost you money on the other end if you keep them long enough.

Now if you sell out before there are problems, or you bury them in your backyard and dont tell anyone, you can come out on the right side of this, just dont tell me about it and then say you are greening the planet, thats just BS ;-)

In truth you can probably get away with burying lots of stuff. And I'm sure some here have had family that just dumped their sewer into the lake and maybe even their trash. Thats reality.

People justify all kinds of things, and people absolutely convince themselves of nonsense, so if you want to believe getting rid of old solar panels will never be a problem, or you will just bury them in the ground, well then best of luck to you.

For a group thats seems to make lots of overtures about going green and being green, there are a whole lot of shallow and strange and self centered perspectives openly shared here. Its an interesting bunch to be sure.

I'm wondering, if you had a magic wand, what would be the ideal solution in your opinion?

XCR is correct here. We are way behind the ball on recycling the solar panel and the hazardous waste that they are. Same condition exists with batteries coming out of the electric cars……

Sorry to interrupt this very interesting discussing about solar energy. Some questions about the original topic of the thread:

(1) Is it true that electric rates are doubling? I have Eversource. My electric bill is about $115 a month. How much might it be after August 1? A higher electric bill on top of an impossible oil price is a pretty big hardship for most people. (I recent heard a prediction of oil at $8 a gallon this winter.)

(2) What are the biggest ways we can reduce our electricity consumption substantially? I don't think that eliminating trickle charges is going to make much of a difference if the bill doubles.

My biggest dilemmas are air conditioning and dehumidifiers. I work at home and have to have a cool environment. For reasons I still don't understand, my house is very humid in the summer. The dehumidifiers (second floor and basement) use a lot of electricity.

One solution I'm considering is using only the ground floor of my house. That way I wouldn't have to use the AC upstairs at night. I could just continue cooling the downstairs, which must be more cost effective than cooling down the very hot second floor at bedtime.

It’s interesting that so many have much higher electric bills during the summer. Ours are lower by a substantial amount because our first floor stays fairly cool and rarely needs air conditioning. The second floor is only used when we have company, and it gets really hot up there, requiring air conditioning. Our last bill was $98. We grill a lot, and I don’t use the oven much when it’s hot.As someone has pointed out already, substantially higher electric bills, added to heating costs, are going to break people’s backs financially. Very disturbing.

If you look at the supplier charge on your bill you will see the number that will double. In my case it is $53 with Eversource as my supplier.

I just signed up with Direct Energy for about .13xx.

That's an increase but it is still better than paying .22!

You can lower (raise?) your bill by doing that and turning off the a/c and sweating.

:)

You could check the basement for humidity transfer through the floor and walls. If it is concrete it may be sealed with drylock or a comparable to lower the transmission rate. Open the basement windows for the humid air to disapate. Also check for proper gutters... move the water away from the building.

Going Green
 

So it seems that being "green" is all about saving you money, not the substantial negative effects on the environment that comes with the creation/ disposal of EVs/solar panels.

That's kind of like the coal/NG industry claiming that they are green because they are making lots of money and (currently) saving money for their customers.

Specious argument at best.

Cheers..

Gusman

Sorry XCR, you are going to have to provide some links. I'm NOT disputing chemicals are used in solar cells that are harmful. But I am disputing that they are any more difficult to recycle than say a pc, or a cell phone, a tv... a car. Nor are they more dangerous. I'm willing to look at more data though. There is loads of BS that is driving the green agenda, countering it with more BS is not a solution. Pointing out that we have no other viable alternatives to fossil fuels presently except maybe nuclear is one way to counter the madness of shutting down fossil power generation before there is a replacement.

I'm not a green fanatic. I understand that without large gov't subsidies and programs that many green technologies, especially those in power generation, don't make economic sense and cannot be scaled to the level required to replace traditional sources of power. It's just physics.

Higher energy cost is the only solution our present administration and all the green lobbyists has for the green dilemma. You can't escape it. Your electric bill will not double, but it will have a significant rise. The only way to reduce it is to lower your usage. That means turning things off, maybe buying more efficient appliances, but that results in marginal savings at significant cost.

There isnt one yet, every green option has baggage.

Geothermal and hydrogen are the best on the horizon, and then very advanced nuclear power plants that will come soon, but today, its just trading one problem for another. And with each change we introduce more complex problems. The lithium battery industry being possibly the worst today,,,

Sorry, I'm not promoting anything, just warning that in some peoples efforts to do better, they are actually making things worse.

It will take time,,,

Until then, cotton over most synthetic clothes, ZPG, TUR, Reuse/Recycle, AND avoid Lithium anything if at all possible.

ATB

Just a couple of quick crayola grade reads to get you started, but I'm not your teacher on this, I suspect you are just as good at using google as the next guy.

And again for anyone considering solar, simply ask the seller/installer, if they will include a clause in your contract to dispose of the panels at the end of life at no cost to you. If they say yes, OUTSTANDING, if they say no ask for pricing for it at your cost!

https://www.latimes.com/business/sto...cycling-danger

https://www.epa.gov/hw/end-life-sola...and-management

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michael...h=33461dd6121c

https://www.hazardouswasteexperts.co...zardous-waste/

https://www.wired.com/story/solar-pa...d-toxic-trash/

https://hbr.org/2021/06/the-dark-side-of-solar-power

Higher energy costs are not due to this administration.

Oil was $147 when gasoline was last at the $4 mark. We only went to $120 for gasoline to go to $5. That means a great demand for the supply of refined product. We lost 1 million barrels per day of refining capacity in 2019 and 2020... this Administration hadn't even entered office.

We saw this coming in 1984... for the wage labor. And 2015/2016, for the energy increase. Everybody in the market was discussing it back then.
The US oil fields are producing... the US doesn't have refining capacity, and the next two countries even close to our capacity are Russia and China.

The Houston refinery was slated to close in 2023, taking another 500 thousand barrels per day out of our refining capacity... and only expects to hold on to 2024 due to federal pressure and incentives.

If the cost was actually hurting anyone... we wouldn't see so many out-of-state plates in central NH or the lakes full of boats.

So regardless of our increasing field production in the US, we have no more refining capacity and must send the crude overseas to be refined.

Because this situation is not going to change... everyone in the industry being honest has told the American people that it is going to require demand destruction...

In other words, people will need to be more than conservatives in self-appointed name only.

Unobtanium
 

I have no opinion on this video and only post it for it's content which may make people think about the information we are being fed. Including this video!

How true is it?

But it is food for thought.

If you haven't used Youtube before, the video plays after the ad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqppRC37OgI

John, enough with the logic—LET'S GO BRANDON!!!

Like, for real, people forget how high gas was when Bush was in office or that there was a pandemic when gas was $1.xx/gallon or that the supply chain was disrupted during the pandemic leading to supply and demand and resulting costs to be affected or that the rest of the world is dealing with the same stuff.

Listen, Biden's no panacea, but Trump wasn't either—his China tariffs, foreign-worker policies, etc. are still damaging—so enough with the polarized absurdity. It's not only disingenuous, it's damaging.

Sent from my SM-G990U1 using Tapatalk

What's your opinion on this article?
https://ohiobasementauthority.com/re...ows-in-summer/

Thank you for the comment on gutters. Years ago someone convinced me to remove some gutters to prevent ice dams. It had no effect on ice dams. I will look into putting the gutters back up.

Worth noting the Prager University is not a University but instead is an advocacy organization with significant funding coming from oil billionaires. So good point to think about where information comes from.

Thank you for the original post regarding rate hikes. While my NH electric use is seasonal and not much, the overall cost and rising price of electricity, heating, and water (not here, but in many places) is alarming and calls for meaningful, informed solutions which should include conservation and an openness to alternative greener solutions. There is no panacea but instead a multi-faceted approach is needed.

I have solar because t makes economic sense - and the green benefits outweigh the drawbacks. I don't have an EV for similar reasons. What works and makes sense for me isn't the same for everyone.

Some, not all
 

Some, not all, are classified as hazardous waste. From the EPA:

https://www.epa.gov/hw/end-life-sola...and-management

Dave