LSES Workshop-"Will Solar Run My Home?"
RECAP

LSES held its past workshop on, "Will Solar Run MY Home?"  The workshop was Friday, April 17, 2009 from 9am-12pm at the Gulf South Solar warehouse in Baton Rouge.  Due to Spring schedules were had to hold the workshop on a Friday instead of our usual Saturday, but other than that it was a great day!  We had participants from Baton Rouge and New Orleans, take time out of their Friday to come and learn more about solar!

The day started out with a presentation by Cece Hyslop, the LSES State Coordinator, on the background and history of LSES, energy efficiency tips to better your home before you go solar, and solar basics 101.

The next presenter was Justin Runnels with Gulf South Solar.  He covered the basics of solar more in details.  The different types of systems and how each system works.  Which system is best for your home, depending on what you want and what your house can support.  He also briefly covered how to size your home of for PV, thermal, and pool heating.  After this we took a short break where everyone was able to mingle and meet the presenters and meet each other.

The next presenter was Jeff Shaw, the LSES Director and Founder.  Jeff covered more of the technical aspect of solar and the cost of each system, its components and installation.  The end of his presentation was tax credits and other programs such as HERO and HELP, to get the homeowner started.

We asked all attendees to bring their last electricity bill statement so we could demonstrate how to size up your home for solar on the www.solar-estimate.org website.  The people that brought their bills were able to give us how many kw they used in the last month and from there we were able to figure out how much it would cost to offset their home (either 30%, 50%, 100%, etc.) with solar and how much it would cost after tax credits.

The workshop was a great turn out and hopefully everyone's questions and concerns with solar were answered!  We want to thank everyone for coming out and learning more about solar.  We also want to thank the presenters for taking time out of their day to talk about solar!  Thanks Jeff Shaw and Justin Runnels!