10/16/2018
Anonymous
While going green is a big factor in my decision making, the commitment to go solar occurred when my husband and I returned home from a Caribbean vacation one February to 20 degree temperatures and two days without power. The diesel generator had never been properly broken in because it was unbearably loud and incredibly smelly. We had no heat and had to move the dogs and ourselves to a friend's house. I decided we should look into solar power with battery back up.<br /> <br />After meeting with several companies, we selected Sun Dollar Energy because of Dan's involvement with all aspects of the project, his experience and incredible depth of knowledge. Our ground-mounted system has been working great since our install in 2015.<br /> <br />Until Hurricane Michael, however, we never got to test how it would do during a lengthy power outage. Each time we lost power, Duke Energy would get it back in 12 hours or so. This time, we were without power for 2 days – an excellent opportunity to see if we could make it off grid!<br /> <br />The system worked perfectly! We hadn't realized the grid was down (our house seamless transitions to the battery back up) so we drained the batteries down to 70% that night. By 11:00 the next morning, they were back to 100% and with all the power the array was generating, we charged our computers and cell phones and took care of all we needed to.<br /> <br />I feel so much more secure knowing that, in the event of a disaster, we'll be able to keep going pretty much as usual – no big energy drains like the dishwasher or the clothes washer, but very happy knowing our two deep freezers and refrigerator, as well as our computers and telephones have all the juice they need.<br /><br />Working with Dan has been great. Whenever we have a question or minor issue with the system, he always responds quickly to texts and emails. We couldn't be happier!