The folks at Peacehaven Community Farm in Guilford County recently put in a yurt from Blue Ridge Yurts. They are testing the yurt to determine how to best use their land with as light an impact as possible. Some of the future uses for the yurt that they are considering include meeting or office spaces and storage uses.

Our friends at the Abundance Foundation recently completed their “Office of the Future,” a fossil fuel-free workspace. The office runs off of a 510 watt solar array, a 30 watt solar air heater, and they plan on putting in a solar air conditioner for the summer. It was made out of local materials and they also used soy spray insulation and low VOC paints. In the photo above, they are sporting their new red TS Designs shirts on a snowy afternoon in front of their office in Pittsboro, NC.

Doing the Math
Decrypting the Tax Law Lingo
Our numbers estimate that our new solar array will pay for 96% of its purchase, installation, and operating costs over a 6 year period. This document answers a few FAQ’s about the numbers behind the payback.
The rest of this page references a spreadsheet with all the summary calculations [...]

Our new solar array is officially installed!  Honey Electric Solar finished laying down the panels yesterday.  The only thing left is for Duke Energy to hook us up to the grid.
Here are a few images of the install:
Stay tuned for the financial payback analysis of our shiny new array, coming soon!
[update 9/15: the payback analysis [...]