For him, solar is a bright idea
ENERGY SOURCE: A home's photovoltaic panels show how solar power could be the wave of the future.
10:00 PM PDT on Wednesday, August 2, 2006
By CHRIS RICHARD
The Press-Enterprise
Like most new homeowners, San Bernardino City Councilman Neil Derry takes pleasure in showing off his house.
His neighborhood in the foothills of the San Bernardino Mountains was developed recently enough that bobcats still visit. There's the panoramic view, with City Hall a toylike shape in the hazy distance. Inside, there's the big-screen TV and the spare bedroom he plans to convert to an exercise room.
And, after this week, Derry can show off another point of pride: an electrical power meter that runs backwards.
Derry predicts that three solar panels being installed on his roof this week will make his 3,300-square-foot house nearly self-sufficient for electricity.
"I wouldn't have done this if I didn't know it makes financial sense," he said. "I can tell you, it does."
So far, the councilman is part of a small group of solar-power users in California, but experts predict that rising electricity prices, worry over global warming and government incentives will make the energy choice steadily more popular.
One reason solar conversions still are fairly rare is that set-up costs can be steep. Derry's initial set-up priced out at $52,000. After state and federal rebates and tax credits, the system will end up costing Derry about $32,500, slightly less than the national average for such photovoltaic systems.
Derry was able to fold that expense into his 30-year mortgage. But he expects it to pay for itself in the next 11 years.
Chris Smith, an account manager for the solar consulting firm BES America, said one reason is the shift to photovoltaic cells.
Until recently, most home solar power relied on thermal systems, which heat water for swimming pools or generate electricity with household turbines. Most thermal systems rely on expensive and short-lived batteries to store electricity for later use.
Photovoltaic systems skip all that, Smith said. They are built around a system of semiconductors made of a crystalline material, most commonly silicon, that carry a negative charge on one side and a positive charge on the other. Solar rays dislodge the negatively charged electrons and create a household electrical current.
Extra power flows back into the power grid and there's no need for household batteries. The grid borrows power from the home system during sunny summer days and pays it back when the home system requires it.
State regulators are trying to encourage the spread of such systems.
In January, the state Public Utilities Commission approved about $3 billion in customer rebates over the next decade for property owners' solar panels.
The goal is to get Californians to install equipment capable of producing 3,000 megawatts of solar electricity with panels on 1 million homes, businesses and public buildings over the next decade.
Derry, a regional public-affairs manager for Southern California Edison, acknowledges that he's probably more attuned to energy alternatives than the average consumer.
But Smith said interest is growing.
This summer's blistering heat -- sure to bring a corresponding jump in air-conditioning bills -- has brought a surge of calls from prospective solar customers.
According to a report by Clean Edge, an alternative-energy research firm, the venture capital investment in solar power hit $150 million in 2005, double the investment for 2004. In public stock markets, the three largest initial public offerings in 2005 were for solar-energy companies.
Still, there's a lot of room for growth in the California market.
Only about 100 megawatts, about 0.3 percent of California's electricity capacity, comes from rooftop solar panels, installed on about 15,000 homes and businesses, according to a report by Environment California, an environmentalist organization.
