Mark Dullea, Donna Qualters, and their canine Molly stand in entrance of their Peabody house powered totally by photo voltaic panels on their roof. (Spencer Hasak)
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PEABODY — Mark Dullea of Peabody has lowered his carbon footprint by 95 p.c and eradicated his electrical invoice. How? By working his home totally on photo voltaic power.
The hassle to transform his home to solar energy started within the mid-Seventies when he was working as a chief planner in Cambridge. At some point, he heard a few assembly of the New England Photo voltaic Vitality Affiliation on the MIT School Membership.
“So I went down out of curiosity and it was actually attention-grabbing and I used to be sort of drawn to the concept photo voltaic makes plenty of sense,” Dullea stated. “Not that there is any local weather discuss or something like that. It is only a cool method to make electrical energy.”
Since then, the sphere of solar energy has grown tremendously. The photo voltaic panels he and his spouse, Donna Qualters, put in on their roof now convert 20 p.c of the power they take in into electrical energy, in comparison with 5 to 7 p.c when he first began solar energy. .
The photo voltaic panel system on prime of his home is a 5.5 kilowatt system. It was put in in 2011 and has accrued 80,000 kilowatt hours of photo voltaic power.
“The home is full south, which is nice, and the roof pitch is about 45 levels, which is nice,” Dullea stated. “So the pitch and the orientation is totally nearly as good as you may get. There is not any bushes blocking it, no constructing overshadowing it or something like that.
Dullea and his spouse used to pay about $35,000 for his or her system, however now it is lower than that, someplace within the $20,000 space, he stated. They recoup their preliminary funding as well as, via particular packages in Massachusetts.
“We get a 30 p.c funding tax credit score, that is a federal tax credit score… [or] $12k proper there within the first yr,” stated Dullea. “We additionally get the so-called SREC funds, photo voltaic renewable power certificates … And what occurs is you may have the correct to promote hundreds of kilowatt-hours.”
The SREC program lasts for 10 years, which Dullea just lately accomplished.
“We get about $250 a month from that,” Dullea stated. “Perhaps $3 a yr or one thing like that over 10 years, so there’s 30k there.”
There’s additionally one other tax credit score that he will get beneath the Photo voltaic Massachusetts Renewable Goal (SMART) Program. This program goes on indefinitely, he stated.
Together with electrical energy, the heating and cooling of his house can be photo voltaic powered, utilizing warmth pumps.
“A warmth pump is a reversible air conditioner,” says Dullea. “Principally, it is a reversible summer time air conditioner. It really works like a standard air conditioner. It runs a refrigerant via a loop, which absorbs warmth from the home and drops it into outdoors. Within the winter, it does the alternative. It runs the refrigerant via a loop that absorbs warmth from what seems like chilly air and releases chilly air.
The components of Dullea’s house that are not powered by solar energy are her gasoline range and hearth. They use the fireside just a few instances a yr.
Through the years, the panels briefly failed the home solely twice – each instances due to squirrels.
“We have had two squirrel assaults over time. We had one about 5 years in the past the place the squirrels had been beneath the panels,” Dullea stated. “The squirrels went beneath there they usually wish to chew issues as a result of their tooth are continually rising in order that they must continually file their tooth to allow them to additionally chew our wires in our photo voltaic panel.”
The following time the squirrels got here in, they ate via the roof – regardless that Dullea had put in a fringe guard across the panels.
“The squirrels had been in a position to breach the perimeter guard that was put in as a result of it was put in badly, and never solely did some harm to the panels, however ate their approach not solely to the shingles … and there’s a nest that hanging within the attic. ,” stated Dullea.
They had been in a position to restore the roof and panels and set up a brand new perimeter guard. Since then, the system has been free from squirrel assaults, and the panels have by no means did not generate electrical energy for them.
Dullea, Qualters and their canine Molly have lived with zero electrical energy payments and virtually zero carbon footprint for 11 years and don’t have any plans to vary that.
