Going Solar

One doesn’t have to be clairvoyant to know that Pasadena Water and Power and Southern California Edison are predicting the cost of electricity will rise — much as gasoline has done — over the next few years.

But not for Chris Yoder and his wife Sandy Kapteyn. Their highest electric bill last year was about $50 for their 2,800-square-foot home in Kinneloa Mesa, located in the eastern unincorporated portion of Pasadena — and that included the cost of maintaining an electric vehicle and a heated pool.

The 45-year-old Yoder, director of information services at Caltech, grew up on a banana farm in Hawaii, where solar panels were used to harness enough power to clean up those facilities. It worked there, and in 2003 Yoder installed solar panels on his 60-year-old Pasadena home with a 50 percent rebate from SCE, quickly reducing his $200 a month electric bills.

Although he and his wife bought their house in 1999, Yoder said installing solar panels before that “didn’t look like it was going to make economic sense.”

But now there are many ways for the Yoders and other average citizens and homeowners to have the power of the sun work for them through the installation of solar panels, or photovoltaic (PV) cells — a move that would reduce the drain on the state’s power system, not to mention utility costs, to zero.

In August 2006, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed Senate Bill 1, written by Democratic Sen. Kevin Murray of Los Angeles, increasing the breadth of the governor’s Million Solar Roofs Plan.

The goal of the California Solar Initiative, or CSI, so-dubbed by the California Public Utilities Commission, is to provide 3,000 megawatts of clean energy and reduce the output of greenhouse gases by 3 million tons, “which is like taking one million cars off the road,” Schwarzenegger said in a prepared statement.

The plan, officials hope, will lead to one million roofs with solar power collectors by 2018.
The original plan only applied to customers of Pacific Gas and Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas and Electric. Murray’s legislation expanded the program to include customers of municipally owned utilities.

In addition, people using solar power can sell excess energy back to power companies for credit on their monthly bills.

SB 1 also requires developers of more than 50 single-family homes to offer the option of a solar energy system to all customers, beginning Jan. 1, 2011.

On Monday night, the City Council approved plans to install two solar systems on the rooftops of the Gas Compressor Building at the city’s Broadway power plant and the pump shop of the city’s Glenarm power plant.

According to a report about the move, the council last year approved a plan for the city utility to install 14 megawatts of solar power systems by the end of 2017 as part of the city’s obligations in meeting the CSI’s 3,000 megawatt goal.

The CSI also has a 10-step schedule with performance-based incentives for small and large systems that applies to SCE customers. In essence, once a certain number of total megawatts is reached statewide, the incentive is decreased.  The incentives are based on the step the state is at when the system is installed.

Residential projects in SCE areas have already missed the best incentives. According to Bob Botkin, Edison’s CSI manager, Californians are already at Step 3, in which small-system and/or residential customers get credit at $2.20 per watt, down from the $2.50 offered in Step 2.

Step 4, which begins when California has reached 100 megawatts for small systems, is $1.90. “The program started on Jan. 1, 2007, and was slow at first,” Botkin said. “Currently, we have 200 new residential projects per month — this is the highest volume rate. It’s been a steady increase over the last year and a half.”

For PWP customers, there is a one-time rebate based on the size of the system and the estimated PV system capacity. For larger systems (100 kW to 1,000 kW) there is a schedule of five annual payments for the first five years based on the actual metered kWh output.

Municipal-owned utilities are required to reduce incentives over the life of the program on an average of 7 percent per year.  That means by the end of 2017, PWP must show a decrease of 70 percent, but it doesn’t have to be 7 percent each year. At press time, PWP did not have a particular date set or schedule for decreasing incentives.

Early adopters of this new technology, Michael and Pam Edwards have a shady roof on their hillside property, so their panels were also installed on the hill and made adjustable for optimal angles, depending on the time of year. Michael can manually adjust them in a simple 25-minute operation.

Recently retired from the finance department at Warner Bros., Michael said he thought that shrinking his electric bill would be a good thing to do for retirement. And since the mid-January installation, the bills for their 3,300-square-foot home have been “essentially zero,” he said.

These homes, located in an unincorporated area of Pasadena, have been paying SCE power rates, which are higher than those charged by the Pasadena power utility.

This year there are performance-based incentives available for Pasadena customers as well. PWP customers are also eligible for federal tax credits of up to 30 percent of the cost for commercial installations, or $2,000 maximum for homes.

In Pasadena, Patrick Holmes, vice president of technology for a healthcare company, recently installed solar panels on his home. “For years, I’ve been thinking it’s silly to live in Southern California and not use solar energy. Part of my motivation was I needed a new roof,” said the 50-year-old Holmes.

Working with the roofer, solar panel installers finished the project in December. The new meter was installed three weeks later. Holmes’ first full bill was $255 less than the previous year, and it actually had a credit.

Businesses and nonprofit organizations are also going solar. Sarah Orth, development director of the Pasadena Mothers’ Club, said their 18-kilowatt system supplies 30 percent of the facility’s electricity, and “definitely helps with the air conditioning, particularly during the summer months.” They decided to go green in late 2005 and opened in October 2007 as a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified project.

The Armory Center for the Arts also reduced its kilowatt hours significantly — a full 45 percent — with the photovoltaic system that was installed in 2002.

For businesses, particularly larger ones, it might be too late to get the best incentives, Botkin explained. “The commercial side was actually picked up pretty quickly. They are already at Step 5 of incentives. It has definitely slowed down significantly because the larger systems might not be able to be installed to take advantage of the [federal  solar energy investment] tax credit of 30 percent [with no cap].”

If you’re ready to take the leap, solar panel installation is not a do-it-yourself project. Even PWP employees such as Assistant General Manager Eric Kinkner and Public Benefits Manager John Hoffner — both SCE customers — had their systems professionally installed.

For example, Holmes had to have an upgrade on the electrical system on his 1958 house. PWP customers Sheila and Greg Beaman had already upgraded the electrical system on their 1906 home, but “we paid to have our east side neighbors’ trees trimmed down to get more sun,” she said.

PWP customer Steven Petersen, 60, consulted the Go Solar California Web site and FindSolar.com, compiled a list of companies, called about eight and then took bids from a few companies. Less than three weeks after signing the contract, the solar system was installed.

But if you have the money, the time to move is now. Some PV installers are completely booked for this year.

Maureen McDonald, president of Pasadena-based Solar Engineering Inc., which helped build the LEED-certified project at the Mothers’ Club Family Learning Center in Pasadena, is still accepting applications for residential projects until early November.

“We have expandable crews because of our pool of talent,” McDonald said. “We should be in discussion this month and signing contracts by August for systems over 100 kilowatts.”

According to McDonald, for an SCE customer the payback period may be as little as seven years — and that’s assuming the price of electricity is constant, “and that’s a bad assumption.” In the eight years that she’s been in business, McDonald has seen a couple of waves of interest but now, with the general population “a lot more sensitive to global warming, everyone sees what’s happening to energy.”

For homeowners, solar panels will only add value to their property. McDonald explained that “homeowners immediately get it back in equity. If you install by the end of 2009, you’ll be exempt from increased property taxes.”

It does require a sizable investment, because you are essentially “paying for 20 years of electricity in one check, but you’re locking in the price at known costs,” Kinkner explained.

For homeowners, there are special green loans such as New Resource Bank. Such loans, according to Peter Liu, founder and vice chairman of the San Francisco-based bank, “come very close to the utility bill that the homeowner would avoid.”

Just as consumers have a choice of owning or leasing a car, he or she will have a choice between buying a solar system or leasing a working system.

In leasing, a contractor builds the system, maintains it and provides power at a certain price. Caltech opted to enter a power purchase agreement with Solar Power Partners of Mill Valley and have the actual construction done by EI Solutions. Sara Hammes, vice president of marketing for San Rafael-based EI Solutions, explained that since they do large commercial installations for businesses such as Google and Sony Pictures Entertainment, they can no longer guarantee completion on any new projects by the end of December.

Nat Kreamer, president and CEO of San Francisco-based SunRun, said that his company offers purchase agreements for residential customers. There is an upfront cost for pre-purchase of electricity, running about $4,000 for a really small installation.

If you still think solar is something only for green geeks such as Ed Begley Jr., Daniel Burtt of RecSolar noted that “the first people who used cell phones were judged differently than now when they have become cultural icons. We are at a crux, a transition place.”

If you’re hedging your bets on nuclear energy in the future, Burtt warned, “Nuclear is cheap, but it takes lots of time to build. Solar is ready to install right now, not 10 years down the road. You do not have to deal with waste; you do not have to worry about nuclear waste. Solar panels, unlike nuclear power plants, will not become terrorist targets. In the short term, nuclear energy is cheaper, but in the long term, solar power has fewer dangers and is more environmentally sound.”