Energy Update

Every year for the last few I’ve taken time out to enjoy the National Solar Tour.  The first year, I made the trip to see local installations in the Greenville area.  To be honest, it was a letdown but the crew that put it on, did the best they could.  It got better every year.  This year was great.  To my knowledge this was the first year that Myrtle Beach had its own tour.  A friend and I headed to the beach for the weekend.  We took our families with us and while they enjoyed the grand strand, He and I toured from Pawley’s Island to North Myrtle Beach.  For the first time, we were able to see all that we wanted to see.

Solar Photovoltaic
Solar Thermal Water Heating
Geothermal Air Conditioning
Wind Powered Electricity

Primarily there were two installers. 

Carolina Solar of Surfside Beach
Impressive Green Buildings

While each of the Carolina Solar installations was impressive, I found out the most information from Tom Baker at Impressive Green Buildings.  To be fair to Carolina Solar, they may be just as knowledgeable but Tom was available and took well over an hour to explain things to James and me.  He had EVERY installation mentioned above on site at his building.  We could it see it all working together for his building.  THAT’S WHAT I WANT. 

He convinced me that before I spend ANY money on generating electricity using Solar or Wind Power that I should first work on sealing my house to make energy conservation work for me.  Then, he suggested we spend our next dollars on solar water heating.  He was bold enough to say, “It should be illegal to heat water in SC any other way”.

I enjoyed my conversation with Tom and expect to have him out soon to help me develop a plan to finally start doing something with my solar future!

I’ll keep you informed.