Farm-Way - Vermont Gear Invests in Solar Energy

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Farm-Way Inc - Getting Green

Many things influenced us in the decision to go solar. Be it from our customers that were pursuing or were involved in some aspect of green energy to the expansion only a couple of years earlier of our retail store of approximately 70% increase which resulted in much more energy consumption with the additional utilities encompassed (air handling heating cooling and lighting). These things along with our own growing concern of our environment led us to take the step towards dissolving a large portion of our impact at our community level. We are extremely excited about this venture we have taken and had begun construction of this system in mid October of 2008 and had begun collecting power from our system by the beginning of January 2009. Farm-Way and "Vermont Gear" (our retail web site) with the help of the "Vermont Clean Energy Development Fund" have invested over $450 000 in our solar panel project from a company in White River Junction Vermont. Grant money from the Vermont Clean energy fund helped get this project off the ground and was received in May of 2008. It is constructed with 308 panels in a portion of our adjacent field leaving room to expand the system in the future to perhaps compensate for 100% of our electrical utility needs. Payback is expected in approximately 10-15 years. We are generating approximately 58 KW of power which is equivalent to 43% of our electrical power consumption. (We have accumulated readings of 62% & 66% of our power being generated by our system in the months of April and May of this year). Lifetime of our solar system data states we have produced 45% of our consumption. Our utility usage is approx $33000 per year and with our solar production we expect to save approximately $14000 annually towards this cost. Environmentally our system allows our local electrical service to avoid 76 000 pounds of carbon dioxide per year equivalent to 11 passenger cars for a year or annually planting over 1500 tree seedlings and growing them for 10 years. This will also allow reductions from the utility power annually of NOX @ 84 pounds and sulfur dioxide @200 pounds. To help raise awareness and promote education we now have a public video monitor at our entryway providing continually updated views of the systems output and easily understood information on the benefits of solar. We have also linked our web site to the data and output information in real time as it happens as you can see on our web page. We are extremely excited about this endeavor and even more so as we watch our compensation for utility power that is being generated with this pasture of power.
Farm-Way, Inc. is dedicated to protecting the environment, along with the health and safety of our employees, and the community in which we carry out our business. It is our strategy to seek improvements throughout our business operations to minimize our impact on the local and global environment by conserving energy and other natural resources; reducing waste generation; recycling and purchasing recycled products; and reducing our use of toxic materials. We are dedicated to prevention of pollution, continual improvement and meeting or exceeding all environmental regulatory requirements that we find possible." We also give preference to suppliers whose products follow our strategy above, based upon recycled components, etc. which we have experienced and taken advantage of in some of our footwear, clothing and outdoor furniture lines. Solar Panel Dedication with Governor Jim Douglas

Some of our favoritesA few of our favorites as we look forward to providing as much of our own energy as possible and cleaning up our earth.

Other ways to help

Public Transportation (in our area) Vermont Public Transportation Association
Ride Sharing (in our area) Upper Valley Ride Sharing Stay Green (in our area) Green Hotels in The Green Mountain State