Wednesday, April 02, 2008

You Can Visit a "Green" House in Kendall Tomorrow. By Geniusofdespair

Visit the historic 1917 Dice House, the oldest house in Kendall, restored through a partnership of Dade Heritage Trust and Miami-Dade County Parks, and hear a presentation on green building.

Albert Harum-Alvarez, the unofficial historian of Kendall, built a sustainably designed "green" home using tried-and-true design patterns from traditional architecture. His property incorporates the existing Smoak Cottage, the second-oldest home left from the historic hamlet of Kendall.

Learn how the house will allow this family to spend less than $50 a month for electricity, while completely forgoing windstorm insurance. Maybe you will learn how to save some money of your own. Go! Thursday, April 3rd, 7 pm - The Historic Dice House in Continental Park - 10000 SW 82nd Avenue. This is a Dade Heritage Day event.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Yeah, but that's not good for FPL's business model. Here's from a letter from Rhonda Roff that she submitted to the Miami Herald:


As an FPL ratepayer, I am horrified at their manipulation of statistics before the PSC which grants them guaranteed cost recovery for new power plants if the need is determined to be accurate by our Public Service Commission.

At their investors' meeting last week, Bob Barrett of FPL used a bar graph showing that they added fewer customers last year than in any year since 1990. He also mentioned that customers are conserving energy by choosing Energy Star appliances and compact fluorescent light bulbs and insulating their roofs. Sadly and incorrectly, the title of the slide, "Customers are sensitive to the overall economic slowdown and are taking conscious steps to reduce usage", implies temporary conservation rather than a permanent ethic.

To assuage investors he predicted the housing market will turn around. NOT in his prepared script was the line, and I quote loosely, "the other situation will be with us for a while". By "situation" he means reduced ratepayer demand. So, customer conservation is bad for business.

I cannot understand the projected demand increase unless it has something to do with the guaranteed cost recovery they get if the PSC buys the argument.

See the bar graph on page 8 of
http://media.corporate-ir.net/media_files/irol/88/88486/IC08/BobBarrettBaselineTrends.pdf

The ten year plan may be found at:
http://www.fpl.com/about/ten_year/pdf/plan.pdf