Getting a Charge from Expectations Met

By Julius J. ("JJ") Hayden, Sustainable Newton Treasurer

It is great when projects turn out like you intended and do what you expected.

We participated in the Solarize program in 2019 and upgraded our existing small, grid-tied solar system to a bigger and more capable system. The goal was to supply about 50% of our monthly electric power consumption and to have batteries to supply power at night. Not only at night, but also on that rare-for-us occasion the grid power goes out.

Our solar panels and batteries have been living up to our power generation expectations.  And, then came this month's flooding and eight hours of no power coming from the grid. I was working here at the computer when our power went out the first time, and I didn’t even notice it was out, except that the lights went dark in the other rooms. The next morning, I heard the gas furnace and blower come on, and I thought “Great – that’s just what I expected.”  I then checked on our refrigerators, and they were operating just fine.

It's just so great when a plan comes together and works as expected.