Painting the concrete walls with an IR reflective masonry paint such as TEX•COTE® SUPER•COTE™ COOLWALL Systems® or EnerG H.R. Architectural might be worthwhile looking into.
http://www.texcotehomes.com/http://www.dwellsmart.com/Products/Paint-Stains-Sealers-Wall-Coverings/EnerG-Heat-Reflective-PaintA combined roof hot water and PV solar installation would also shade and put to use the excess solar heat absorbed by the building, reducing internal temperatures and reduce your electricity load for domestic water heating (solar water) and lighting (PV). A water sprinkler system for the very hottest days fitted to the roof for evaporative cooling would be a pretty cost effective solution.
Shading windows by the use of planted trees will have a double effect by shading the amount of IR radiation being absorbed by the windows and you could even have a crop of cherries, oranges etc within a few years.
With your new AC system (actually a good investment) you should also find the efficiency will be better than the previous one. It might well be possible using some of the energy efficiency methods to reduce your AC load by more than 50%.
After lighting (use of CF and LED lighting) the next biggest energy saving appliances to replace in my experience would be for refrigeration and computer appliances (of course depending on how efficient your current appliances are). I have replaced an 20 year of chest freezer with a A++ rated Vestfrost SE255 this year at a cost of around $600 - this was after I realised that the old chest freezer was costing over $150 a year to run by using a power meter. The Vestfrost SE255 is now estimated to be costing around $40 a year to run. As you can see the newer larger capacity chest freezer will pay for itself within 5 years.
I can make measurements and make estimates of electrical energy supply costs using a
Costcurrent energy monitor hooked up to a low powered dual core Atom media PC (which itself only consumes around 25W compared to an old Athlon XP machine which consumed around 170W). If you have a large LCD TV you can save a considerable amount of energy by just adjusting the back light down and adjusting the contrast and brightness settings. I saved around 80W yet no-one else noticed the difference in TV picture quality.
What is really surprising is the fact that solar energy is so abundant in places like Florida and the southern states and combined with the fact that the USA is a modern high technological society that the USA should be at the very forefront of implementing alternative energy such as solar power. At the end of the day its not really rocket science.
Can you get a government grant for a combined solar water/PV installation which helps towards the cost of an installation?
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