I have known Linda Weinberg for almost 7 years. When I first met her she wanted a solar system to provide power to offset her power usage. Her home was very large, had a lot of corners, did not get much natural sun light and took a lot of power to heat and cool.
Self-sustainability is something that Linda has always been very passionate about, but at the time she never committed to following through with any real solution to her energy situation. A few years later she finally got a solar thermal system, approximately a year later she unfortunately suffered a house fire. Everyone was okay but the house was beyond repair and would need to be replaced.
Throughout this time I have been in contact with her a number times, provided at least two more solar system designs but none of them materialized during that time period. In 2014 plans were finally designed for a brand new house.
The new house has a lot more practicality included in the design, not as big and not nearly as many corners that are hard to heat or cool. The new house is a passive solar house which means that sunlight provides lots of heat and light in the winter time. One of the main design features of this new house is a twelve kilowatt Solar PV system.
It is expected to provide all of her electrical power requirements, plus have power left over to power a Tesla electric car. This system consists of 48 black solar modules, two SMA inverters, Tough Track solar mounting and all the intercon-nections. It also features daytime power backup to provide power even when the electric grid is down. The system is also designed with the capacity to add nighttime battery backup capability at a later date.
Linda is looking forward to moving into her new house next month, a house that is designed to be very comfortable, and will cost almost nothing to power. Regardless of what our own journey towards self-sustainability, and renewable energy includes. We can all take some inspiration from Linda Weinburg, she never gave up regardless of the patience and persistence that it took.
