Greenrock was pleased to be invited recently to visit a solar-powered house in Shelly Bay. The house has a large solar array and a small wind turbine. On a sunny day this equipment can generate 6 kw, enough to power a good-sized family home, even including air conditioning units.

The household’s Belco bill has dropped from more than $500 per month to about $100 a month, and the owner now has plans to install a more efficient electric stove and additional panels to remove the remainder of the bill. The system also has batteries as a back-up, providing two or three days of power in the event of a Hurricane or power outage.

What is really unique about this house is that the owner has persuaded Belco to allow his system to be “grid-tied”, meaning that on a sunny day the meter spins backward - the owner recently received a credit from Belco for the electricity he had sold them! The house is now being used as a testing site for the concept of grid-tied power in Bermuda. In Europe and the United States, it is standard procedure to sell power back to the electricity company during periods when a household produces more electricity than it uses. Greenrock hopes that soon more houses in Bermuda will be grid-tied in this manner, and want to help facilitate this process.