Ossining Area Neighbors Work Together to Make a Greener Future

Back in October Patch told you how the day care installed solar panels on and around their building. It was a great example of friends and fellow business owners banding together to make an idea a reality. Everyone from the neighboring auto shop to the local Bobcat dealership pitched in to make the day care's green future happen.

If you haven't seen our video report on the story, then please click on the video (to the right of this text). For those of you who have seen the video, day care center owner Wendy Wasserman has just sent Patch an update on their green initiative. Here it is:

To date we have produced 7.02 mega watts of power. There has been a carbon offset of 485 tons and we have produced enough to power 232 houses for 1 day.  I also though you might be interested in the financial implications. My bill from my supplier (Direct Energy) has been reduced dramatically. 

Much to my surprise, the Con Edison portion (mostly demand) has had little change. I learned something very interesting about the demand charges from Con Ed. Every business/home has a demand meter. It registers your usage every 30 minutes all day long. At the end of the month, they take the highest 30 minutes and multiply it by (a set multiplier). I was in shock that they didn't average out the month and base it on that (what a rip off). Anyway, we are now addressing the demand side and decided to take advantage of the program offered to businesses by Con Ed. They do an audit and if you take their recommendations to upgrade, an approved electrical company will make the changes and Con Ed will pay 70%.

They came in last weekend and changed all our inside lighting and will do the outside next. This should help. We are also looking into a program from NYSERDA to help us replace our water heater with an instant hot water system.  So that's where we are now. I'm very happy with the affect that the solar has had.