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Privacy Policy
Refund Policy
Cape & Islands Self-Reliance is a non-profit 501(c)(3) corporation, whose mission is to promote environmentally sound technologies and sustainable practices through education, advocacy and collective membership that provides tangible benefits.
Cape & Islands Self-Reliance was founded in 1980 to identify, facilitate and educate the public about sound environmental practices that help protect our ecosystem. By educating and empowering the consumer, Self-Reliance acts as a catalyst in implementing cost-saving, pollution-reducing opportunities for homeowners, businesses and municipalities. Self-Reliance’s community-supported buying cooperative was established over 20 years ago to place the purchasing power in the hands of the consumer by enabling citizens of Cape Cod and Southeastern Massachusetts to buy necessary services at affordable group rates.
History
In 1980, Self-Reliance was founded by a group made up of the New Alchemy Institute, the Housing Assistance Corporation of Cape Cod and the Wompanoag Tribal Council to help communities on Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket attain self-reliance in energy, water and food. Our mission is to promote local environmental sustainability, primarily through renewable energy technologies and clean fuels such as biodiesel and renewably generated hydrogen. By educating and empowering the consumer, Self-Reliance acts as a catalyst in implementing cost-saving, pollution-reducing opportunities for homeowners, businesses and municipalities through the benefits of our community supported buying cooperative.
Selected Achievements
- Self-Reliance’s efforts assured that the Massachusetts Restructuring Act protects the rights of municipalities to aggregate on behalf of their citizens, and to design and implement their own energy efficiency programs. The Cape Light Compact, made up of all 21 towns of Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard, now contracts for low electric rates and offers ratepayers the option of choosing to purchase green power.
- Self-Reliance administered incentive funds for the installation of over 107 kilowatts of photovoltaics on Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard.
- Self-Reliance sponsored the first wind installers’ workshop at the Cape Cod Regional Technical High School, which resulted in the construction of the first grid-tied wind turbine on Cape Cod.
- In 2004, Self-Reliance established Cape Cod as a Million Solar Roof partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy.
- Since its inception Self-Reliance has provided technical assistance and subsidies to over 4,000 homeowners, businesses, churches, and agencies that invested more than $20 million to improve the energy efficiency of their buildings. The energy cost savings realized from these improvements is $3–$4 million each year.
- Self-Reliance installed a wind data collection tower on the Massachusetts Military Reservation in January 1999 to track the extent of wind resources potentially available for use in the cleanup of toxic waste at this Superfund site.
Highlights of Current Projects
- Self-Reliance continues to offer services to homeowners, non-profit organizations and businesses to affordably evaluate and install grid-tied solar photovoltaic systems, solar thermal systems for heating and domestic hot water and wind power systems. These systems sustainably supply energy on-site and sell any unused electricity generated back into the grid.
- Self-Reliance is working to educate users of large amounts of diesel fuel about cleaner-burning biodiesel, domestically produced from vegetable oils and far less toxic than hydrocarbon diesel. As a result of our efforts, biodiesel is now available on Cape Cod for home heating and for diesel vehicles, and this emergent industry now supplies fuel for a growing number of enterprises in the area, including the Otis Air National Guard base. Discussions are on-going with local companies and municipalities about incorporating this technology.
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