Let the sunshine in
Solar panels were installed on the roof of the home of Carl and Jan Hrivnak of Bethel Park recently.
As you’d expect during a Western Pennsylvania winter, a heavy cloud cover obscures the sun on the day Kathy Jones’ solar panels are installed.
While a crew puts everything in place around and on top of her Mt. Lebanon home, she mentions how her sister in Minnesota took the solar plunge. And if drawing household power from the sun can work there, it can work here.
“I’m off the grid as much as I can be, with my circumstances,” Jones says, explaining that through what is called a power purchase agreement, she has no initial outlay for the new system. Instead, she contracts with provider SolarCity Corp. to pay for the electricity she uses, just like a traditional utility arrangement.
”There’s not a big savings for me, because I’m paying them about a penny per kilowatt-hour less,” she acknowledges. “But I feel that here’s one house that is totally covered by sun and not a fossil fuel. That was very important to me.”
Jones has joined a growing number of homeowners who are trading their reliance on the grid, the time-tested network of power plants and transmission lines, for a different approach.
“Solar is now finally getting to be mainstream,” Adam Rossi says. “People have seen so many installs that you can’t deny that it works.”
As owner of Adam Solar Resources in South Fayette Township, Rossi has observed recent industry changes that have made solar photovoltaics – that’s the process of converting sunlight to electricity at the atomic level – a viable option on a residential scale.
“It’s still the same technology and the same product that’s been there,” Rossi explains. “It’s just more efficient and much less expensive. You’re getting way more bang for your buck, basically.”
Bill Reedy, who has been in the business since 1983 with his North Strabane Township-based Pennsylvania Solar Energy Co. Inc., also points to improvements in products and affordability. But in his opinion, there’s one more major hurdle to overcome: “The biggest problem with solar is that people are misinformed.”
Yes, Western Pennsylvania skies tend more toward being overcast than sunny. No, that isn’t particularly a problem.
“We’re harvesting the ultraviolet rays coming through the atmosphere,” Reedy explains, “and the ultraviolet rays are always there, whether it’s a cloudy day or a rainy day.”
On top of that, the extra heat that comes with an abundance of sunshine tends to counteract the effectiveness of a solar panel’s function. So according to Reedy, “A system in Pennsylvania will probably outperform an Arizona system.”
Thus elucidated, let’s move on to what often is the primary motivating factor for most homeowners’ decisions: the cost.
As noted, a power purchase agreement or a similar lease agreement, by which the customer agrees to a fixed monthly payment rather than going by electricity usage, allows for installation and maintenance of a photovoltaic solar panel system with the proverbial no money down.
“We liked the idea,” Bethel Park resident Carl Hrivnak says, with a system at his 52-year-old home going operational in January. “Part of it was for the environment, but absolutely, you’re going to save money on your electric.”
He and his wife, Carol, contracted with SolarCity for placement of 22 panels, following a thorough assessment of the structural integrity, and with a guarantee of repair if the roof happens to leak or other panel-related problems arise.
“We hope we’re going to get a good return,” he says.
On the other end of the spectrum are those who opt to buy their systems outright, which Mt. Lebanon resident Rocky Raco did in 2010 as a neighborhood pioneer of sorts.
“It was more of an environmental issue,” he says about his decision, explaining that he and a buddy who lives in Colorado have an ongoing competition to see who can be most eco-friendly, extending it to their choices of vehicles. “I’m looking at my carbon footprint, and that’s my goal.”
Raco made his purchase when the cost per watt, the measure of a system’s output, was substantially higher than it is today. But thanks to a savvy business decision regarding solar renewable energy credits – representing excessed power he produced, fed back into the grid and traded as a commodity – he recouped his investment in the first five years.
As of early 2017, the per-watt price for purchase and installation is about $3.50, compared with $20 to $25 a decade ago. That translates to roughly $20,000 to $30,000 to power a typical home sufficiently, with the added bonus of a 30 percent federal tax credit that runs through 2019.
Such figures, though, are subject to some fine-tuning.
“The more electricity you use, the larger a system you need,” Reedy says, explaining that his company sets up appointments with potential customers to take a look at their consumption. “Then we can tell you, ‘You’re going to need X amount of panels to eliminate your electric bill by 100 percent.'”
And along with bill emancipation can come power independence.
“You totally have the option now to be totally self-sufficient,” Rossi proclaims, giving the example of a customer who had a large-scale battery backup system installed to store power generated by the panels. “I literally shut the main power off to his house, and his family didn’t even know that they weren’t connected to the grid. We ran the house off the battery system all day.”
Thomas Congedo, a Wilkins Township resident and professor in the University of Pittsburgh’s Nuclear Engineering Program, says he was referred to Rossi after he and his wife, Carol, decided on some safeguards against what he calls the “instability of the U.S. electric grid.”
“Our goal was to have some security,” he explains. “We figured, if we were going to do it, we may as well do it right.”
They also take the environmental impact into consideration: “Every electron you generate without burning something is good.”
Over in the South Hills, Kathy Jones certainly would concur with that statement. And with her solar panel system in place, she’s eager to get a look at the results.
“We will see in Pittsburgh, with our cloudy days, how it works,” she says. “Fingers crossed.”