BP Solar Expands Home Solution Offer with The Home Depot

http://www.solarbuzz.com/News/NewsNAPR493.htm

April 27, 2005

BP Solar said today that it would expand its BP Solar Home Solution® to virtually all The Home Depot® stores in California. The program enables customers to obtain complete installed solar home power systems that can reduce electrical bills and increase home values without adverse impacts to the environment.

The program was launched in mid-October 2004 with 40 stores in the San Diego region. In December it was expanded to an dditional 42 stores in the Los Angeles area.

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While the program originated in California, BP Solar intends to continue its expansion in 2005 to additional US markets in New Jersey and New York.

According to Geoff Slevin, BP Solar US Marketing Director, “the success of our program with The Home Depot lends us the opportunity to further extend our reach to customers who are interested in improving their homes with quality products through one of most respected home retailers in the US.”

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From BP's website...

http://www.bp.com/managedlistingsection.do?categoryId=3060000&contentId=3060156

http://www.bp.com/genericsection.do?categoryId=3050485&contentId=3050766

I've been considering going solar for several years.

Makes it much more accessible to the general public, instead of having to piece together a solution, or hunt down a specialist.

It will be interesting to see if more people get them, when it's as simple as going to Home Depot.

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My buddy moved from Pennsylvania to Sarasota, Florida because there were no jobs in PA in the early 1980s. He would go to work in construction by the day, then come home, take a shower and hang out by the box fan all evening. Being of the cheapskate extraction, he refused to run the air conditioning. In a few months, he got a special notice from the electricity company warning him that it was illegal to tamper with the power meter.

My house only gets a bit of morning shade from an advantageously-placed maple tree. From 10:00 am and on, it is in the 42nd latitude sun. Our only way of dealing with it has been an attic fan that draws about 3 amps.

Did you know that even white mineral-surfaced shingles absorb 80% of the sun's energy?

When did it happen that americans became so fufu that they could only function in a temperature range of 71-73F? It blows my mind the way people whine about the least bit of heat. I grew up in southeast Baltimore without any A/C and I'm here to talk about it, WTF is it with people? We did fine with fans and cold beer. Now that I live in the South I find this even more striking. I often ask these pathetic whinners how anybody lived around here before A/C. Now I understand that housing construction has gone stupid but it's more than that. It is an effete desire for continual comfort, a refusal to live with their environment.

I've been fortunate, brick house surrounded by trees, we run the A/C about 10 weeks a year, basicly July and August, set at 78F. We consider it a luxury, not a necessity. Burnt about $300 worth propane this past season. We got ceiling fans and sweaters.

I am firmly of the opinion that the South would be a much, much better place without A/C and federal flood insurance.

I wonder if they are being conservative, that's higher than some other estimates I got.

There must be a bug in their estimator page. For Tempe, AZ I get "excellent" sunlight intensity, which is surely true. But then I ran the estimate for western NY, and they still said "excellent" sunlight intensity. Definitely NOT true!

But the estimage for western NY did show a lower power output, so they got that bit right.

was $7000 - the price of a used car.

It would reduce your electric bill (assuming $100 a month for an Energy Star / Good Cents home) by 22% after the cost of the system was factored in.

A 1 kW system was $3500 after rebate and would save you 11% on your electric bill (again assuming a $100 a month electric bill).

This is a credit card purchase....

Here's a map of US PV output potential - there are very few places that have low insolation values...

http://www.homepower.com/education/solar_map.cfm

Upstate NY solar homes with performance data....

http://www.nesea.org/buildings/ny01.htm#Upstate%20NY

http://www.nesea.org/buildings/ny01.htm#Capital%20Region

http://www.nesea.org/buildings/ny01.htm#Central/Finger%20lakes%20region

even near Buffalo...

http://www.nesea.org/buildings/ny01.htm#Buffalo

note: a "face cord" is a single piece wood pile 4 feet high and 8 feet long and 16-24 inches wide (as opposed to a true cord which is 4 x 4 x 8 feet).

PV works fine for folks in upstate NY - "where PV don't work"...

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