Looking for wind storage in homes
Currently Summerside is selling about 15 per cent of the energy from its wind turbines to New Brunswick, because there's no way to use all the electricity generated in the city. One factor is that the wind tends to blow more at night, when not as many people are using it.
At a recent council meeting, the city announced a new program asking homeowners to buy a special, ceramic space heater. The heaters use high-density bricks to store heat overnight that can be released to warm the house during the day.
City administrator Terry Murphy said the heaters are really no different than a furnace.
"The demand for the heat can be adjusted as you do today. In other words, you can set your thermostat at certain levels. It will be no different with this here," said Murphy.
But the heaters aren't cheap, about $2,000 each, so the city is offering a six-cent break on the first 2,500 kilowatt-hours as an incentive for those who buy them.
"We're looking at about $600 a year that could be beneficial to the consumer," said Murphy.
The city hopes the incentive will convince at least 100 homeowners to invest in one of the heaters in 2011.
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'Unbelievably dangerous': NB Power sounds alarm on copper theft after vandalism, deaths
FREDERICTION - New Brunswick's power utility is urging people to stay away from its substations, saying the valuable copper they contain is proving hard to resist for thieves.
NB Power has seen almost as many incidents of theft and vandalism to its property in April and May of this year, than in all of last year.
In the 2018-2019 fiscal year, the utility recorded 16 cases of theft and/or vandalism.
In April and May, there have already been 13 cases.
One of those was a fatal incident in Bathurst. On April 13, a 41-year-old man was found unresponsive and later died, after breaking into…
