Connie Blixhavn has spent the past number of years trying to be a more energy efficient person.

Right now, she and her husband Bruce are busy converting their home in Killarney to solar power. She says it’s a natural progression for their household. “I’m the person with an electric car and now we have an electric truck and we decided we might as well go solar as well because we feel every little bit helps.”

 

Blixhavn says when you factor in all of the incentives to go solar it’s an easy decision to move in that direction.

 

“There’s $5,000 from the province, $5,000 from the feds and then you can get a 10-year interest free loan to help cover your costs. Our payback period was going to be 12 years but now Hydro has increased the payback rate from 3 cents to 6.5 cents so our payback period will be quite a bit lower.”

The Blixhavns purchased the larger solar unit because they have their electric vehicles to charge.

“In the summertime our solar system will over produce for our power needs and feed back into the grid. We won't have any bill in the summertime and then in the wintertime depending on the sun we’ll probably have a fair bit of production as long as the sun is shining,” said Blixhavn.

Energy efficiency is something that has always interested Connie Blixhavn and that includes her time on municipal council. “I’ve always been the green lady and I’ve always been interested in lowering my carbon footprint and I pushed for recycling, and I was pushing for an electric Zamboni and just doing things differently. We can all do things to help and I’m actually planting my grass to clover.”

The solar panels have been on their house for close to a month and the Blixhavns are clearing the final hoops before they go online.

 

A number of other homeowners are turning or looking into the solar option.

 

“You do save money and there are a few benefits to going solar powered. You home should be easier to sell because the solar system due to lower energy bills. Mine will be reduced by $125 per month for the entire year. One of the things I was told with the installation of the cooling panels it will help cool your home because of winds flowing around the panels and we shouldn’t have to use the air conditions as much either.”