If you’re reading this, and you’re a regular visitor to my blog, then you can see that The Energy Miser has a new, improved look.

We have also just launched a new website that, among other things, teaches people how to evaluate their roofs for solar, and provides a searchable gallery of almost 400 photos to help you envision solar on your own home.

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The websites of many solar companies have taken a turn for what I would call the worse. All they do is capture people’s contact information so their salespeople can pester those people. Based on the feedback we get, that approach is annoying consumers, and it’s not helping the solar industry. New England Clean Energy, on the other hand, has always focused on educational, low-pressure sales. Our new website takes the educational element up a notch.

The criteria that make a roof work for solar are identified in a video entitled Good Roof Bad Roof, in which I show you eight roofs and explain why they do or don’t work for solar, based on their azimuth, pitch, obstacles, roof material, and shading.

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The gallery of hundreds of customer photos is searchable by town, state, panel location (roof or ground), house style, roof style, roof material, roof obstacles, and monthly solar production. Every individual considering solar wants to know what a system would look like on their home. This tool allows you to see what solar panels on barns with metal roofs look like, or Colonial-style homes with hip roofs, for example. Each photo in the gallery can be enlarged into a mini-case study with details on the installation such as location, system size, monthly solar production, installation date, and in some cases, additional photos.

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The new website is mobile-friendly, of course (thanks, Google), and has a bunch of other new, fun content, including more animation, new case studies, and an expanded Business/Nonprofit section

Also, we have a new, shorter domain name. The website is now at www.necleanenergy.com and employee email addresses use the @necleanenergy.com domain.

Since we like to be efficient and roll out all our changes at once, we’re also announcing an office move. We’re still at 43 Broad Street in Hudson, where we’ve been since 2012, but we’re moving into a larger space, suite A408, to accommodate our growth.

And, we’ve got a new toll-free number: 877-886-8867. The number 978-56-SOLAR (978-567-6527) still works as well.

Please visit our new website and let me know what you think!