Communities are joining forces to make solar power more affordable.
North Bay communities are finding new meaning in John Lennon’s old anthem, “Power to the People.” And they’re doing it by looking to the sky. Nine cities and towns in the North Bay were recently recognized as inaugural winners of 15 out of 27 total City Solar Awards presented by the NorCal Solar Energy Association—proof positive that when it comes to harvesting the power of the sun, Sonoma, Napa and Marin counties are setting a shining example.
With the price of oil hitting triple digits and a growing awareness that global warming isn’t just a science fiction concept, grassroots community groups and municipalities in the North Bay have literally set their sights on the sun as a means to lessen their carbon footprint. And they’re finding that generating solar power not only makes sense—it also makes cents. Through 2008, the federal government will provide a $0.019-per-kilowatt-hour benefit for the first 10 years of a renewable energy facility’s operation. In addition, state-funded incentives help pay for the systems, and the reduction in energy consumption lowers utility bills. In most cases, the savings on utility bills alone pays for the system in seven to nine years.
Last year was the first in a 10-year program known as “Million Solar Roofs,” championed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and overseen by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). Dubbed the California Solar Initiative (CSI), the plan has a goal of creating 3,000 megawatts of new, solar-produced electricity by the end of 2017. In doing so, CSI will move the state toward a cleaner energy future and help lower the cost of solar energy systems for consumers. The effort includes $2.9 billion in incentives to homeowners and building owners who install solar electric systems.
Solar Sebastopol
Long before the governor launched his program, Marty Roberts and a band of solar activists in Sonoma’s West County formed Solar Sebastopol, which operates under the auspices of the City of Sebastopol.
“We were the trailblazer, and now we’re recognized as a model program,” Roberts proudly proclaims. “We get calls from communities all over the world and were even featured on the BBC in the United Kingdom."
Roberts started meetings with Sebastopol City Council members and volunteers from throughout the community in 2001, shortly after the City of San Francisco passed a solar bond initiative.
“San Francisco was my inspiration,” says Roberts, who was active with an organization called Sustainable Sebastopol at the time. “A group of us split off from Sustainable Sebastopol to deal specifically with solar energy. We wanted to do a feasibility study, but we had no money, so we got help from students in the energy management design program at Sonoma State University.” The study was completed in 2002, and recommended a city-wide solar program, which was endorsed by the Sebastopol City Council.
The organization’s first effort was to make solar more visible, so it sponsored solar fairs in 2003 and 2004. The group still hosts smaller events, like bringing in nationally recognized solar experts to talk about the issue. It also sponsors training for building inspectors and installers.
“The city itself led the way by installing solar at the fire station, public works yard and the public pool,” says Roberts. In addition, solar was recently installed at City Hall, the police station and at the wastewater pumping station. So far, only Sebastopol Hardware Store and Analy High School have since switched to solar; most of the real progress has been made in the residential areas of Sebastopol. Roberts credits Dave Brennan, Sebastopol city manager, for helping promote solar power.
“It’s nice to work with a city that’s cooperative and motivated, and we couldn’t have done it without Dave,” says Roberts.
“And [developer] Alan [Strachan] spearheaded a green energy loan program with our local banks, which sends energy auditors to homes to determine how much savings homeowners can expect on their utility bill. The projected savings then becomes the amount you pay on your loan each month.”
Roberts lives in Two Acre Wood, a co-housing or “intentional” community on Robinson Road in Sebastopol. Those who live there bought the land, built the houses and operate as a community by consensus. All common buildings in the community use solar power, as do four of the private residences.
“I think it’s the solution to everything,” Roberts says. “It’s a way to reduce our dependence on oil. We’re going to war and killing people for oil, and meanwhile we’re polluting the world. By switching to solar and other alternative energy, we’ll get cleaner air, a cleaner environment and no war. It’s a no-brainer for me, but the federal government doesn’t get it. Acting locally is the thing to do until they catch on at higher levels.”
To date, Solar Sebastopol has met 40 percent of its goal, which is to generate 1 megawatt of power. If it incorporates solar installations immediately outside the city limits, it’ll have already surpassed it at 1.4 megawatts. For its efforts, the City of Sebastopol was ranked first among small cities in the 10-county Bay Area in number of solar systems installed (326)—more than three times its closest competitor, Sonoma, which had 93. Sebastopol also was second in solar watts per capita (188) and most watts installed (1,421,423).
Roberts is currently involved with efforts to expand Solar Sebastopol to Solar Sonoma County, which would include all nine cities as well as county land. Sebastopol recently received a grant from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District to move ahead with plans for Solar Sonoma County.
Bill Blake, marketing director for Solar Works, a Sebastopol-based solar design and installation company, has worked with the city on four of its solar projects and has his finger on the pulse of the new incentive program offered by the CPUC. He says that those who join the bandwagon early will get the biggest bang for their buck, because, “state incentives drop as more people buy into the program.”
Currently, the CSI offers photovoltaic incentives of up to $1.90 per watt for commercial installations, $2.20 for residential and $2.65 for government or nonprofits.
CSI funded 33 percent of Sebastopol’s City Hall project. According to Blake, the City Hall solar system is expected to meet 97 percent of the building’s electrical needs when additional energy conservation measures (including improvements in its heating/air conditioning system) are factored in.
Solar wineries
Solar Works has been in the solar business for 21 years, starting with solar hot water systems and now focusing solely on photovoltaic (PV) electrical systems. The company is currently making a big push to work with small commercial businesses, small institutional clients and nonprofit organizations, such as Food for Thought. “We see that as an underserved area, so that’s our niche,” says Blake. Solar Works is also getting calls from an increasing number of individuals interested in a separate part of the CSI program known as New Solar Homes Partnership, which will provide $400 million in initiatives over the next 10 years.
“It’s a bit more complex and rigorous to qualify for these particular incentives,” Blake says. “We’re willing to work with clients to go through those steps, but we’re speculating that other installers aren’t willing to do that.”
Blake says solar buyers generally fall into one of four categories. “There’s the environmental buyer, who’s interested in environmental impact. There’s the financial buyer, who’s interested in purchasing a power-producing asset and doesn’t want to rent his electricity any longer. There’s also the cool technology buyer—the person who wants to buy the latest gadget. And then there’s the libertarian buyer, who just doesn’t like the utility companies and wants to be free of them.”
Sonoma County, which ranks second in both total and per capita solar installations among all Bay Area counties, is particularly suited to solar power, Blake says. “We have a great sun resource and a lot of motivated individuals—residences and wineries, in particular. The wineries have found it fits well with their marketing, too. They want to promote guilt-free experiences of enjoying good wine, be good stewards and tread lightly on the land. They’re very aware of the danger of climate change. If this becomes a dust bowl, they’re headed to Washington State.”
Gopal Shanker, president of Récolte Energy in Calistoga, is an energy consultant whose main focus is working with wineries. “They show me their energy bills, and I get them on the path [toward solar] by educating them about tax credits, rebates, net metering and so on. The system is unnecessarily complicated,” he says. “I hope to help bring those obstacles down.”
Shanker has helped with the development of some of Napa Valley’s largest winery solar projects, including those at Chateau Montelena, Far Niente, Nickel & Nickel and Saintsbury. He notes that the wine industry, in particular, has a fairly large penetration of solar projects. In fact, it’s almost off the charts.
“Nationwide, total solar installations in 2005 were only at .07 percent. PG&E has more solar installations in its territory than any other utility in the country, but their 2007 projection for solar is still less than 1 percent. In Napa Valley alone, where there are about 400 brick-and-mortar wineries, more than 40 have gone solar or are going solar. That’s more than 10 percent, which is pretty incredible,” Shanker says.
Solar only makes sense, business-wise, if a company has money, is profitable and is credit-worthy, Shanker adds. “If a company isn’t making enough money to pay federal tax, it doesn’t benefit from the tax credits. If it’s not profitable, it can’t depreciate the system. And if it’s not credit-worthy, it can’t get the loan.”
Shanker came to the wine industry in 1994 as a business adviser to a consulting winemaker. He then set up his own consulting business to help smaller wineries that couldn’t afford to hire full-time financial officers. “The winemaker I worked with told me that, in most cases, the people he consulted for didn’t produce bad wine, but they needed help running their business,” he says. After a while, Shanker began looking for something that would give him more personal satisfaction.
“Paul Dolan [wine industry icon and a pioneer in the biodynamic/organic/sustainable agriculture movement] turned me on to a book called The Ecology of Commerce [by Paul Hawken],” Shanker says. “This book and some people wanting access to my wine industry contacts set me off on the solar path.” Seeing it as a way of getting Napa to be an exporter of best practices, Shanker turned his efforts toward helping wineries go solar.
“Everyone, not just wineries, should get into renewable energy. There are so many big issues in the world that are energy-related—climate change, peak oil, skyrocketing global demand for resources, health, ecology and national security. In the past, you could draw big circles around each issue, and within the circle you could reach the solution without bothering about its impact on the other issues. For the first time, all these circles are converging, so our solutions have to be more comprehensive. There’s one solution that fits in the intersection of all the circles—the combination of energy conservation, energy efficciency and renewable energy.”
City of Napa
The City of Napa, gateway to the Napa Valley Wine Country, has made tremendous strides in adopting solar power. It ranks first among large cities in the Bay Area in solar watts per capita (43). Two major solar projects are frequently cited as role models—the city’s water pumping station at Lake Hennessey and Napa Valley College.
Patrick Costello is the water resources specialist for the City of Napa and works closely with the Lake Hennessey project.
“We looked at our electrical accounts, and the pumps at Lake Hennessey were the largest users,“ Costello explains. “We have six pumps that have to lift water 200 feet to a hilltop treatment plant. Sometimes they’re pumping as much as 20 million gallons of water a day. The average bill for those pumps alone was more than $200,000 a year with PG&E. With the landscape, we knew we could do a solar array by using a field that was vacant at the base of Conn Dam.”
The city solicited bids and hired Berkeley-based Power Light, which has since been purchased by Sun Power. Power Light helped the company through the rebate process that PG&E offered at the time (self-generation incentive program, now expired). The 356-kilowatt project went live in July 2006.
“On peak days, we’ve generated 320 kilowatts of power,” Costello says. “Everything we produce, we feed back through our account and subtract from our running bill. The best you can do is net out to zero. We’re not large enough to do that at this point.”
According to Costello, the city predicted it would get about 610,000 kilowatt hours of electricity during the first year of operation. But it hit 660,000 kilowatt hours, exceeding its objective by 8 percent. “We even had a week that the system was down because of a power outage from a storm. We hadn’t ironed out the restart procedures, so it took us a while to get it back up and running.”
The Lake Hennessey project uses two arrays for 1,920 solar panels on a little less than two acres. It’s a tracker system, which means it faces east at sunrise, gradually tracking the arc of the sun until it sets in the west. A tracker system generally boosts production 20 percent over what can be expected from a fixed tilt system (in which the panels are tilted at a specific, stationary angle to capture the sunlight), Costello says.
The cost of the project was $2.65 million, but the city received a $1.15 million rebate, leaving a net investment of $1.5 million, financed with a low-interest loan from Umpqua Bank. It’s projected the city will save more than $3.2 million over the next 25 years.
Currently, the city is considering a rooftop solar installation for the fire department, and there are more public sector projects under consideration. According to Costello, in the last year, City of Napa building permit requests for solar installations nearly doubled, from 11 to 20.
“Overall, the city and county have hit the proverbial tipping point in dealing with energy and environmental issues. The awards are a testament to the work that’s going on throughout all of Napa County,” Costello says.
Napa Valley College
As Napa Valley College expands its campus, it’s embracing sustainable design and alternative energy projects. Dan TerAvest is the director of campus planning and construction and has worked for the college for 27 years.
In 2002, voters passed a bond measure that added a 150,000-square-foot building on the campus. “We were pretty concerned about increased utility costs and their impact on the general funds. We thought about alternative energy as a way to lessen the blow, and the more we researched it, the more it appeared that we should maximize the PG&E incentive that was given at the time—so we went for one full megawatt,” TerAvest says. “It turns out that on a good, sunny, spring day, the system runs the entire campus, not just the additional building.”
The $7.5 million project was built by Power Light (now known as Sun Power). A total of $3.5 million was rebated by PG&E under its incentive program. The remaining $4 million investment should be made back in nine years with savings in utility bills.
The college opted to install the solar panels on campus flatlands that are located on the flood plain. They used sheep to “mow” the land, then put the panels atop eight-foot-tall stilts to accommodate the 100-year flood line of seven feet. It’s a tracking system, and the rating is actually 1.2 megawatts, although it was considered 1 megawatt for the PG&E incentive. The college then developed the wetlands beneath the panels.
“It’s an all-around green project,” TerAvest says. “We also restored a nearby stream and cleaned up and reestablished our pond.” As a result, the campus is seeing a lot more waterfowl these days.
The college isn’t stopping with the solar project. It’s about to complete a thermal energy storage project that will produce a million pounds of ice every night. “We’ll run the compressors in the middle of the night and then circulate ice water to all the buildings for cooling during the day. It will take the air conditioning off peak period, which will be a big relief on our carbon footprint,” TerAvest explains. Solar-powered pumps will circulate the water during the day.
In addition, all new building construction will use daytime sunlight harvesting, letting the school reduce artificial lighting levels. Even the curriculum is adjusting—the college is developing an alternative energy technology program that will be separated from science classes once it’s approved by the state, and credits can be transferred to other educational institutions.
GoSolarMarin
A new grassroots movement to promote the use of solar power in Marin County, called GoSolarMarin, has resulted in a unique relationship with SPG Solar, which is based in Novato. Under the plan, SPG Solar will offer a special discount to all homeowners, businesses, commercial building owners and nonprofit organizations throughout the county through the end of February 2008.
At a standard installation price of $7.94 per watt, it represents a 15 to 20 percent discount from current average photovoltaic prices in Marin. The program offers buyers several component choices and includes most standard roof types (composition shingle, torch down, standing seam metal, flat and sloped roofs and so on). Extremely steep roofs or other complicated installations are assessed on an individual basis.
Lisa Max, who describes herself as an entrepreneur, potter and former real estate broker, started GoSolarMarin as a neighborhood project. Max and her husband, Gary Tobin, moved to Marin from New York City via Bellevue, Wash., in 2004.
“We were blown away by the weather here—so much sun!” she exclaims. “Why doesn’t everyone have solar?”
After renting for several months, Max and her husband decided to purchase a home and specifically looked for one that would take solar. They found one on a hillside in San Rafael, facing southeast with no obstructions, lots of glass and a flat roof.
Then she got her first estimate for installing a 5-kilowatt system. Prices ranged from $8.60 to $9.64 per watt—$43,000 to $48,200 for the entire project, not including a state rebate or federal tax credit.
“Being a native New Yorker, I never buy retail,” Max says. “So I put flyers under my neighbors’ doors to see if any of them were interested in getting solar. I figured if there was enough interest we might be able, as a group, to get a better price.”
In January of 2007, Max brought up the issue at a meeting of her neighborhood association with the idea of getting competitive bids. She then reached out to other neighborhood associations and, before she knew it, the idea snowballed, leading to the formation of GoSolarMarin. Several volunteers joined her to put together a request for proposal (RFP), which was sent to 15 solar companies.
“We wanted everyone to get the same rate, whether it was one house at 50 kilowatts or 50 houses at 1 kilowatt. We also listed specific products and requested service warranties,” she says. Of the 10 companies that sent bids, Max and volunteers Jennifer Hewitt and Carol Benson, both of San Rafael, interviewed four, visited their facilities, checked out their staffing levels and service departments, determined their ability to do the work using no subcontractors and inquired about other issues that might concern most homeowners, including responsibility for roof damage and repairs. In the end, they selected SPG Solar.
“We were glad it was a Marin company, employing local people and offering the added bonus of shorter drive times and using less gas” Max says. “But we didn’t go into the bidding process with any prejudice.”
Ted Walsh, sales manager for SPG Solar, describes GoSolarMarin as an “unbelievable opportunity.” It was SPG Solar’s idea to offer the discounted rate not only for eastern Marin, but for the entire county.
“Dan Thompson [SPG Solar’s founder] and I—as well as many others here at SPG—are homeowners in Marin, so we wanted the program to be as inclusive as possible,” Walsh explains. “I just bought my first home in Fairfax, and I wanted my neighbors to be able to take advantage of this opportunity. I wanted the people in Nicasio to have the option. This discount is even cheaper than our employee discount, so I’m looking forward to going solar with the rest of my friends, neighbors and the entire community here in Marin,” he says.
SPG Solar can offer the discount in part because it’s established the resources and infrastructure in Marin to implement and support the program, but also because it’s established great relationships with its vendors, which will let the company combine enough orders to purchase system components in bulk.
The company was founded in 2001 when a solar rebate program was offered through the California Energy Commission. Today, it employs nearly 150 people statewide. SPG Solar is headquartered on Leveroni Court in Bel Marin Keys and has regional offices in Windsor, Oroville and Oceanside, as well as warehouse facilities in San Rafael, Palo Alto and Bakersfield.
“We’re one of the few solar companies that considers residential and small commercial projects our bread and butter,” says Walsh. But the company also maintains a leading presence in the large commercial and municipal-scale markets. At press time, the company was installing the very first floating solar system (appropriately called a “floatovoltaic stystem”)—as part of a 750-kilowatt system for Far Niente and Nickel & Nickel wineries in the Napa Valley. The system is installed on a device that floats in a retention pond that Far Niente uses for irrigation. SPG Solar’s research and development wing, Thompson Technology Inc., holds the patent on the floating device.
Walsh has worked for the company for two years and notes that all trends in solar are upward. “At first it’s a science lesson. You have to teach people how it works and how they’re currently being charged for energy. In the end, you explain how they’re paying for their energy one way or another—do they want to continue to rent? Or do they want to buy?”
Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” has definitely had an impact on solar sales, Walsh says. “We got a lot of calls when it came out. What he’s doing and how he’s raising awareness (on global warming) is a driving factor in promoting solar and all renewable energy alternatives.
“When people call us, they’re hoping they can go solar. They’re just not sure if it will work for them, how they should go about it or what their options are. They’re trying to do the right thing, and our role is to help them do it as intelligently as possible,” Walsh says.
According to Max, GoSolarMarin’s efforts resulted in SPG receiving about five times as many calls from prospective clients as is typical. The organization’s next project will be to encourage Marin County to adopt a plan similar to those in Berkeley and San Francisco, which offer low-interest financing to homeowners for solar installation.
Despite the growing interest in solar power, using the sun as an energy source is really nothing new. Since ancient Greece, communities have been designed to take advantage of passive solar energy. Evidence of solar architecture has been found in many archeological excavations. A massive solar power plant was built in Egypt as early as 1912. But after the discovery of huge oil and natural gas fields in the World War I era, solar power development stopped. As Ralph Nader once noted, “The use of solar energy has not been opened up because the oil industry does not own the sun.”
But solar activists like Lisa Max and Marty Roberts won’t be stopped. And with their efforts, maybe widespread solar power will finally see the light of day.
