Thanks for your feedback about solar savings documentation.

Now that we are past June 30, I can give you the results of 24 months of savings for our own northern NY home in Warrensburg.

We performed 2 measures on our home at the same time–insulation upgrade & air sealing (most homes are not properly sealed because builders don’t know about why and how to do it), and solar hot water panels.

(We don’t just sell you one type of equipment and run. We use our specialized Building Performance Institute training in the whole house approach to deliver you the best energy savings possible.)

Our home results compare the 12 month period prior to our measures taken in June 2008 to the two 12 month periods thereafter.

We plugged heating degree days (cold weather stats) for all three 12 month periods into our calculations.

Our fuel savings from July 2008-June 2009 was 32.23%. Our savings for July 2009-June 2010 was 29.4%.

Regarding your question about success in northern climates:

Please see our Question & Answer above, referring to the NREL’s Average Daily Solar Radiation map.

Enerworks is actually based in Ontario, so naturally has lots of success in northern climates. Here is Enerworks’ image gallery, which shows several solar projects in northern climates, including the Arctic.

Another solar panel company we work with is Earthkind. Here is one of their Upstate NY Farm case studies for which they are monitoring the solar savings results: Ronnybrook Farm’s solar savings monitoring..

It shows the flow volume of hot water that is produced by the system. This data can then be used to validate their ongoing savings.

Hope this helps!

Best wishes in your quest for savings with comfort,
Rebekah Sellers