Environmentally conscious and reducing expensive electric bills.

For Bob W. and his wife, Barbara, living in the bucolic but remote Green Mountains of Vermont comes with a few challenges.

“We've had power outages due to wind, the cold and snow,” says Bob. “Each year, we’ll have a handful of minor episodes and one major outage, and they usually happen in the dead of winter. One time we went for four days without power.”

The Bob were early adopters of battery storage and had been using a system that stored power from the grid since 2010. In 2017, they decided to add solar to generate their own electricity. As they began talking with Bill Laberge, owner of Grassroots Solar, it became clear they would need a new inverter and battery system.

“We had dual objectives for adding solar,” says Bob. “We wanted to do something environmentally conscious and get rid of our onerous electric bills.”

Bob lives in a historic, older home that can be found in the area. It was originally built in 1812 and was added on to in 1840 and 1850 and again in 2006. 

“Bob is in a vulnerable section of the grid so he wanted to have some energy autonomy,” says Laberge. “With older homes, there are usually challenges. In this case, it was the wiring but we worked with the original electrician and got everything figured out.”

The payoff for Bob and his family has been significant.

With the extra power he produces, Bob is able to support a guest cottage on his property and even transfer a small amount of credits to his daughter and son-in-law who are also Green Mountain customers.

As part of the solar and battery system, Bob had another electrical panel installed and put essential items on it, including the furnace, refrigeration, water and certain lights and outlets.

During the past 10-plus years, Bob has been taking a number of steps to do things that are meaningful for the planet. He's changed to LEDs, having a heat pump for half of his main house and all of his guest house, plus have installed wiring for an EV.

“While we’d like to get an EV, the biggest stumbling block is the fact that we need all wheel drive and a vehicle that’s high enough off the ground because of snow and ice we get here in the Green Mountains. I’m sure we’ll get one at some point,” says Bob. “All-in-all, we’re trying to do our part to shift to renewable energy.”