NS: New CB company exploring residential wind power

[SYDNEY, NS] — One of the men behind a green conscious Cape Breton endeavour is hoping to turn the solution to his energy needs into a marketable company.

This photo shows one of the windmills Appleseed Energy is hoping to install across the island. Photo submitted by Brian Rose.

Nine years ago, Brian Rose moved here from Indiana and fell in love with a pretty, but powerless property in Richmond County. “The real estate agent didn’t really want to show it to us,” said Rose, the co-founder of Appleseed Energy, along with Ross Macdonald of Janvrin’s Island. “But it was a beautiful site and everything was what we wanted, except for the fact there was no power. We went ahead and bought some solar panels and a windwill and away we went. We haven’t had a power bill since then. We make our own power.”

The Rose property was about a kilometre away from power lines. The cost to connect to those lines, he found, was far more expensive than his own solution. “My system here cost me about $15,000 all together. It is a modular deal where you can add on as your needs grow. We added a chest freezer so we added a couple of solar panels.”

Rose said any investment could pay itself off in 10-15 years at today’s electricity rates. “Even the installation that are net-metered or grid-tied, which means the power lines are there but we are sending the power we make back to the grid. Those are an investment, too, that will pay itself off.”

He said the rate of payback gets faster as the price of electricity rises. And he suspects there are others in and around the island facing similar setbacks who would welcome the grid-tie (net-metering) and off-grid (standalone) systems the company will build, install and maintain.

“We are focusing on small wind, residential farms, municipal buildings, business and that type of stuff. We just started advertising this week — quite a few calls, but no sales yet.”

Visit www.appleseedenergy.com for more details.