Go Green And Make Money From The Power Company

What if I told you that you could essentially make money by saving the environment? Well, I already did in the title of this post, but it's true! Let me lay out the plan for you.

Getting some capital. I never said this would be free; investments never are. However, I have a plan to raise the money, and Ive already covered it in another post. Doing this, you can use the $50+ you used to spend every month and reallocate it towards this project. Therefore, this project won't cost you anything more than you are spending now.

Investing in the future. Solar Panels. Unless you live in an apartment complex or a dark cave you'll be able to profit from these babies. You think solar panels are expensive? Why yes they are. I suppose the manufacturers know the potential of them and price them accordingly. There are instructionals that show you how to build your own for a fraction of the price. In fact, this one in particular is what I am referring to in discussing profiting from the electric company.

How it works. In the simplest of terms, the power you generate using the solar panels will be power that you don't have to purchase from the electric company. If you generate more power than you consume they have to pay you for the energy you produced. Not all electric grids currently support selling the energy back into the system, but President Obama has recently promised that this is a top priority in the near-term future. His reasoning is that we can create our own power from home and that will lessen our dependence on foreign oil while putting money back in our pockets. And, friends, that's exactly how this works.

Reduce your power consumption. Doing this will make it much easier to leverage your ability to generate energy with your usage of it making it more probable that the power company will have to open their wallet to pay you for the power you generate.

The simplest way to do this is to replace your traditional ligth bulbs with something like these CFL bulbs--they lack the twist shape so you can use them in any lamp. They aren't quite as bright as an incandescent light bulb, but they get the job done just fine and each bulb is supposed to save about $45. Now that in and of itself is not going half your energy use, but its one step that will lead to it. I will be writing about this in more detail at a later date.

What I would like to know is if anybody out there has already done this and if so what kind of savings are you making.

Image Courtesy of Richard0