Watch here for discussions with your community on a variety of topics on clean energy like your solar array system, heating system, climate solution projects and more. This is a safe space to connect with your community, share tips and tricks for your home systems, share contractor information and whatever else that is meaningful to help one another! Feel free to start your own, or simply wait for someone from our community to post something worthy of discussion. RULES: Be respectful to all on this forum! No name calling or hassassment. You will be removed from the forum.

Did you know that even if you have your own grid-connected solar PV system, if there is a power outage on the grid, your PV system will shut off? It's a safety measure, which ensures that the folks working on the lines, fixing the outage, won't be electrocuted by power coming from your PV system back onto the grid. This is a good reason to invest in battery storage as part of your PV generation design: no outages! Here's another reason to consider including batteries in your PV design: it's highly likely that Arrowhead Electric, and possibly the PUC, will soon be able to offer members the option of interruptible service. Similar to a dual-fuel setup, an interruptible system would allow the utility to draw from your battery storage at peak usage times, when energy prices are high. Instead of buying expensive peak-usage energy from power generators, Arrowhead Electric or the PUC would instead buy it from you. In effect, you'd have the option to store excess power in your batteries so that you could sell it back to the grid during peak usage times, at a higher price than you'd get for it at other times. Questions? Comments? Please post below!

Have a question? Put it here! You can ask anything related to clean energy. Together, we will find an answer. This is a great spot for asking your community for solutions to common roadblocks, advice, recommendations, or strategies for navigating our transition to clean energy in Cook County. (CCLEP staff and board members will also join in to help find answers to any questions posted here!)