Solar Panels are finally turned on

We finally got interconnection permission from So Cal Edison so now our meter can run backwards and our panels can actually start to produce the electricity they were intended to and to think it only took over two months. To be fair though I did hear that there was a big boom in solar panel installations around the time we had Phat Energy install our panels. I guess as the rebates start to run out people rush to do things, of course that wasn't our reason for installing panels. For us our electricity usage went up just enough to throw us into the next usage tier when we had our underwater cistern and all of it's pumps installed and then we discovered all the local rebates in addition to the federal rebate cap being removed for solar panels so we decided to go ahead and install our panels now, solar panels are one of the things we planned to do eventually so the timing just seemed right for us.

Foothills Green Expo

Today we went to the first ever Foothills Green Expo which was hosted at Pacific Outdoor Living and was co-hosted with Phat Energy. Let me just say that I was really impressed by this very small green expo. The amount of services these two companies offer is rather astonishing. We are getting very excited about working on our yard now, previously I think we were a bit nervous about the whole thing though we were slowly figuring out what we wanted to do with the yard. Today these two companies just helped us to see how to really kick up the green in our yard way beyond what we had imagined.

Pacific Outdoor Living offers tons of services. They will even come out to your house and help you design your yard as well as what order things need to be done in and help you keep it all in your budget. We were most excited by the way that they can put your water storage underground and then put either a water feature or a permeable paver patio deck on top of the water storage area. I know it sounds a little confusing so I really recommend if you are intrigued by this look at their website or call them or even go down there and talk to them in person. You will be amazed at this, so cool not to need to have rain barrels all over the yard to store water for irrigation of the yard.

Phat Energy had these super cool Phatports. They are structures similar to a pergola style patio cover but they have solar panels on the roof area. You can use these as carports, patios, etc. We are really excited about the possibility of putting one in our backyard to cover our patio area. We had thought previously about an umbrella or a sail canopy or possibly even building a pergola style patio cover. This is super exciting though to think of having a covered patio that produces electricity to help offset our electrical usage.