By: Deborah Johnson Wood
ChooseRenewables.com is an experience.
Built around engaging interactive tools, the site helps users discover the size of their environmental footprint and ways to cut energy use and costs. It also guides people through some fun energy calculations, pinpoints their location on Google Earth-powered wind and solar maps, and produces the results in colorful easy-to-understand graphs.
One tool, MyEnergy Makeover, calculates users' emissions of harmful carbon, nitrogen, sulfur dioxide, and mercury — and breaks down the results into home, auto, and air travel categories. It factors in energy saving strategies already in use, estimates costs, and suggests techniques and products to reduce costs. Users can create an energy profile, purchase energy efficient products on the site, or create a wish list to take to a local store.
"If you ask the average person how much energy they're using, they can stumble through the main components," says Michael Ford, founder and CEO. "But if you ask how many kilowatt hours and therms they use and where it comes from, they see what's unnecessary. Then they can change their behavior, implement new technology, or buy energy efficient products."
The wind and solar maps help users gauge if their location is good for a wind turbine or solar panels, estimate installation costs, and calculate estimated energy production. Anemometers are available for lease or purchase to help interested persons determine definitively if their location is good for generating wind energy.
Ford is a business unit manager at Cascade Engineering, a sister company of Choose Renewables. The web site employs four people. Ford plans to add employees as sales increase.
Source: Michael Ford, ChooseRenewables.com
Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at [email protected].
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