Investment propertyGoing "Into The Light" May Be The Best Direction After All...
Homeowners to cash in on a free power source - the sun - as a source of
electricity.
To satisfy our unending search for ways to provide electricity, we have
looked
to nuclear power, and watched the huge nuclear plants close down one by one,
perhaps because of their potential to devastate life as we know it.
Hydroelectric sources force us to re-configure Mother Nature"s water flow for
our own greedy purposes. And, so far, the average homeowner tends to think of
solar power as a cost-efficient way to heat swimming pools. Now, Atlantis
Energy has been successfully introducing "photovoltaic" roof tile to the home-
building industry as a way for homeowners, builders, and utility companies to
cash in on a free power source - the sun - as a source of electricity.
The tiles, called Sunslates, are beoming popular on existing homes (in a
retrofit mode) in large metropolitan areas from California to New York. Now
new home builders are embracing these environmentally "green" tiles for their
new home communities, mostly as an option for home buyers, and the near future
may find builders offering them as a standard feature as their popularity
increases.
The concept of these tiles is quite simple; a changeout of a certain
percentage of planned roof tile to these solar electric tiles will garner more
than enough solar power to "credit" your electricity meter during the day
(literally spinning your electric meter backwards!), and debiting the meter
during darker hours. This is called "net metering". Utility companies across
the country have begun to form partnerships with manufacturers of
environmentally correct products such as these, footing the cost for up to 50%
of the product for builders. The translation of this to the consumer is a
winning combination of energy savings, the possibility of a higher mortgage
loan amount to the buyer, and an unending source for that entity that is
crucial to so many facets of human life - electric power.
Steve Coonen, Vice President of
Atlantis Energy, Inc., reports, "The beauty of this system is that
homeowners can "make" all their own electric power. This is a completely
renewable source of electricity, and can garner 90-100% of the electricity
needed to sustain the average home. Builders love it because it
can be installed by their own subcontractors, doesn"t lessen the curb appeal
of the home, and meets local and national building codes (NEC, UL, ICBO). It
has a 50-year roofing warranty, offers individually replaceable tiles, and has
no moving parts. "
Consumers literally can get more "bang for their buck" by having the
photovoltaic roof tile on their new home. Buyers considering homes with this
system, may take advantage of the various loan programs giving "extra credit"
in the form of a higher loan amount because of the predictably lower utility
expenditure. This makes it possible to make a sizeable dent in the upgrades
they otherwise may not have been qualified to add to the loan. These "tier"
programs are already in place with many utility suppliers and are even called
the "energy efficient mortgage" in some locales.
The future holds no limits for products such as these, where the forces of
nature can be successfully used in their raw form to provide us with our
never-exhausting demand for electricity. And when utility companies,
builders, suppliers of products like Sunslates, and mortgage companies all
work together to make our lives easier, it seems we may on the right track for
the next millennium after all.