As I drove up the hill this afternoon I noticed the front porch was empty of the big boxes and trash cans.    Doug and John were hauling stuff to the truck and attempted to hook the work trailer to the truck.  Something was up; the construction is really coming to an end.  It's a bittersweet feeling.  I'm tired of the dust and decisions looming as well as the small quarters, but we have very much enjoyed the crew and their talent.  I know Paul will miss the Friday wrap-ups. In a front page news article Envinity was featured for their solar system installation expertise.

Doug hung this year's Boalsburg People's Art Fest purchase for me.  It's to display some of the wooden bowls.

POWER PLAY: PART TWO

Electricity rate increase may not be severe

Nick Malawskey

- nmalawsk@centredaily.com

July 13, 2010 7:59am EDT

STATE COLLEGE — There are days, said Akhlesh Lakhtakia, when he and his wife can stand outside their State College home and watch their electric meter run backward.

CDT photos/Christopher Weddle

Envinity Inc. installers Marcus Cullen, front, and Asa Myers place a solar module on a home in Potter Township. As the expiration date for caps on electricity nears, many homeowners are investing in other forms of electricity.

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• Rate caps: Share your experience?
• What will happen when electricity is deregulated in Pa.
POLL
What do you expect will happen when the electric rate caps come off?
 I'll pay about the same as now
 I'll pay less than I pay now
 I'll pay more by 5 to 10 percent
 I'll pay more by 20 to 25 percent
 My rates will go up by more than 25 percent
 My rates will go up by more than 50 percent
 I really don't know

By harnessing the power of the sun, the Penn State professor has, during the past 10 months, watched his home energy bills plummet.

Last year the Lakhtakias took advantage of a state and federal program that helped pay the costs of home solar projects. They installed a solar array on their roof, one of the first in the area, and have reaped the benefits since.

“We are extremely happy,” he said, adding that he expects the project to pay for itself in five to seven years.

He recently had a monitoring system installed that allows him to review his power generation daily. He won’t be able to perform a year’s analysis for a few more months, but in general, he figures the solar array has reduced the amount of power the family has to purchase by 80 percent.

“And frequently, we generate more power than we need,” he said.

Shaun Pardi is president of State College-based Envinity, an energy company that works in a variety of fields, including solar. This year, he has two crews working on solar projects, and they’re booked through the summer with residential projects, he said. He’s thinking of adding a third installation crew to keep up with the demand.

But for most homeowners, a $30,000-plus solar array is probably not feasible, especially since Pennsylvania eliminated its solar rebate program.

There is some good news from Allegheny Power regarding the future of energy prices, which will fluctuate based on market rates when rate caps, in place since 1997, expire on Dec. 31.

“We’re not seeing that big rate increase that was being speculated,” said Allegheny spokesman Doug Colafella. “All those big figures that were bandied about ... 30 percent, 60 percent ... we’re looking at a single-digit rate increase.”

On the auction block

In one of the first areas where rate caps were removed, Pike County, residents were slammed in 2005 when, as a result of a single energy purchase by the utility in the post- Katrina open market, electricity bills jumped an average of 73 percent.

PPL customers in southeastern Pennsylvania were a little bit luckier when its caps expired in 2009. When the company purchased electricity, its customers saw a roughly 30 percent increase in prices. That led to a massive amount of shopping around by consumers, with roughly 30 percent choosing a different supplier.

A similar situation worked itself out in Duquesne Light’s territory in western Pennsylvania, where about 20 percent of the company’s customers chose to go with a different energy generator after caps were removed in 2005.

Each time the changes were driven by substantial increases in prices after rate cap removal.

The difference between those cap removals and what is likely to happen with Allegheny is experience, said Public Utility Commission spokeswoman Jennifer Kocher. She said both the utilities and the commission learned from the past and changed the way the utilities purchase power.

Allegheny and Penelec, which operates in northwestern Centre County, are buying their energy at a number of “auctions.”

In each auction the companies put out requests for power, telling suppliers how much they wish to purchase, and the electricity suppliers then bid on the contracts.

Allegheny was also allowed to move its auction dates around to take advantage of changes in market prices.

“With the struggling economy, the energy prices had dropped,” Kocher said. “So Allegheny petitioned to move its auction dates to take advantage of the favorable market prices.”

Because of the maneuvering, customers in the Allegheny Power territory who choose not to shop around will likely get a pretty good deal — a typical residential customer’s bill will likely increase $3.72 per month, or only 4 percent over this year’s level.

Nick Malawskey can be reached at 235-3928.

Read more: http://www.centredaily.com/2010/07/12/2087643/increase-may-not-be-severe.html#ixzz0u5c0HTOo

Jeff worked on the all three bathrooms today, the shower in the master bath, the vanity sink in the powder room, and the claw foot tub in the loft bath.

Dwayne and crew got the emergency electrical generator fired up and running today for the first time.  It is fairly quiet and will not present a noise problem for sleeping in the rooms on the west side of the house.  Dwayne installed a hook for the pendant light in the loft bath, closet lights in the two bedroom closets, lights in all the knee wall (foxhole) closets, and ran another electrical wire to correct the short under the loft catwalk.  All the outside lights are now installed and functional, including the lanterns at the basement door, the two bumpout doors, and the rear entry door which has a hanging lantern similar to the front entry.  The breezeway rear entry has two small but strong spot lights.
The paint crew was active today and now the door to the kitchen and the door to the garage are the same color as the breezeway walls.  The window seat and the knee wall closet doors were given a nice finish coat.  They also applied touchup to minor dings around the house.

Doug and Chris were hard at work finishing up the insulation and aluminum panels on the basement walls.  With the panels in place they also applied interior trim to the basement door and one of the two basement windows.  The door trim was complicated by an intrusion sensor from our security system, but Doug called the security company and got them to ignore the warnings from our sensor until it was reinstalled on the new trim board.  This was Chris' last day on the job as he heads off on vacation tomorrow, so that's a sign that work is quickly coming to an end.

Doug installed the main entry brass oak leaf door knocker from the 2009 State College Arts Festival, how appropriate that this is the week of the 2010 Artsfest.

We told Doug we were going to the Peoples Art Fest in Boalsburg. He suggested we look for Dave Ferree, a Centre Hall wood crafter whose house he worked on.  We talked to Dave for quite a while.about how much respect we have for Doug and the team at Envinity.

New sink

I've been looking at this sink at every art fair since I came to State College. We told the artist that we are going to build a house around his sink; since this is the first bit of interior furnishings we have, that was almost correct.


Jerry will bring out a load of finished timbers in the Toy Shed late next week. Staging begins. We haven't heard from Michael this week; he's working on the foundation plans. We haven't heard from Tim at Moon Brothers either; he's working on changing the elevations by 6" to allow a step down into the garage.
Fall is definitely approaching. We've had heavy fog each morning this week. Most of the time we are above the clouds. From the top of the hill by the fence I can look across the Valley and think of Kilimanjaro, an island poking through the clouds. It's been cold too, blanket weather if we leave the doors open.
Cedar Waxwings and starlings are flocking. We have a flock of 10 or more waxwings at the top of the oaks in the beergarten (AKA chicken run. On my drive to work I see great flocks of black birds swooping and flying as one or evenly spaced on road signs or wires.
We still have hummingbirds, but are checking diligently for their departure. I think it won't be long.
Another sign of fall is the bell-like bugling of the elks next door. The sound echoes off the mountains and trees. I suppose our cockerels' calls do also.
Leaves are turning yellow; the potties and parking markers are out at Penn State. Football starts tomorrow.