The NB Conservation Council is currently engaged in a letter writing campaign to encourage folks to contact NB Power to ask them to provide solar water heater rentals for its customers. According to the NB Conservation Council's website, NB Power could do this without entailing a cost increase for themselves or for their customers. Currently, NB Power lists guidelines on its website by which customers must comply if they want to take their existing electric rental heater and connect it to a solar (or other renewable) energy source. I'm assuming that the Conservation Council would like to see NB Power offer the whole package and installation to its customers, rather than have the customers take on the additional cost of extra components and the upgrade to solar themselves.
At 400 kWh per month, your average 40 gal hot water heater accounts for a significant chunk of your monthly energy consumption (and electricity bill!). According to the current rate info on the NB Power site, that's an average of just under $40 a month.
Click here to add your voice to those asking for this simple step the utility could take to lessen our reliance on fossil fuels.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
NB Conservation Council's solar water heater campaign
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2 comments:
Sounds so simple, but yet it is not. I don't know of a single thing that does not come at a cost. If there is no cost, why can't we do it ourselves if we are supposed to be so concerned about the environment? Why doesn't the Conservation Council encourage us all to make the switch...why because they said it themselves...it costs to do this. We seem to want NB Power to do the responsible thing in terms of finances, but then we ask them to subsidize....who are we kidding....
It may just be an issue of installation costs and convenience. NB Power has certified plumbers and electricians on contract to install their tanks, so perhaps the Conservation Council is saying that NB Power should look after the installation, just as it would for any other tank.
I'd meant to give them a call at around the time I posted this to clarify the matter, especially after finding the info on the NB Power site telling customers what guidelines they need to follow to look after their own installation.
I contacted them this afternoon with a link to the post, asking them to elaborate, so hopefully someone will be kind enough to clear this up.
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