A smarter and better way to live

Ever since we moved to the Japan countryside we have been conscience of our environment. We have been growing our own fruits and vegetables without chemicals. We bought a tiny car to minimize our carbon footprint. We tried to purchase the most energy efficient appliances (still have some work to do). We planted over a hundred trees in our yard. All of our light bulbs have been changed to L.E.D.. The paints and finishes I use are water soluble. We do our best to recycle and separate cans, bottles, plastic, non-burnable, and burnable garbage. We use paper instead of plastic whenever possible. Heck, we even try to stay home to keep our air clean. Still, we found that we needed to do more. 

Ten years ago the price of going solar was outrageous. Today, however, with energy becoming scarce and very expensive in Japan, the government has incentives to make that giant leap into reusable energy cost effective. To make a long story short...we did! We had our 5.5 kw system installed a couple of days ago. Actually due to the supply shipment backup being experienced around the world, we ordered the solar panels and associated parts over a year ago. Well, better late than never. The paperwork for the government and power company took six months to get approved. Once the materials arrived it took only two days to install and a couple of hours to get inspected and powered up. Honestly, I really didn't grasp what we had done until the following morning after the system was up and running. Erika was cooking breakfast and I glanced over at our new power monitor. The sun was out and the panels were fully operational. I said to Erika, "Wow! Isn't this amazing!" 

She asked, "What?" 

I said, "Look at the monitor. Everything we are using is being run by the sun! Not only that, but the extra power is being sold back to Kyushu Power Plant! Amazing!" Erika had a great big smile. We are saving energy and getting paid to do it. Of course it has been raining since that glorious day, but it won't rain forever. We were told that the whole system will pay for itself within 8 years. Well that's the first part of this story. The second part will come next week. Please stay tuned.

Installation day. Ten people showed up in five vehicles.

Installation went quick. These guys knew what they were doing.

A new circuit breaker box was added.

In less than a day the panels were installed.

The power converter takes DC voltage from the sun and converts it to AC for the house.

This is for next weeks post. Shhhh, it's a secret.

An additional power line was added from the house to the garage (panels).

The next day it was raining, but that didn't slow the workers a bit.

Routing for the wires was extra work as we didn't want to see cables inside the house.

My favorite part...the power monitor. 5.1 kw was divided into 4.5kw being sent back to the power company (money in our pocket) and 0.6kw we used.

The utility meter was upgraded to a remote reading system. No more meter readers.