Sunshine to spare

With more sun than Florida — even if it might not seem like it this week — Central Oregon is a prime spot for solar power.

And hundreds of residents and businesses have taken advantage of that, installing solar panels to turn the sun’s energy into electricity — in some cases more frequently than elsewhere in the state.

More than 250 residents and businesses in the region have taken those steps, and now have the capability to put electricity that they generate from solar panels back into the grid through a net metering system.

In those systems, customers install solar photovoltaic panels that produce solar energy. On sunny days, when they produce more than enough to power the lights and appliances in the building, the leftover electricity goes back into the grid — and the customer gets credit for those watts on their power bill.

For Ralph Gerig, who installed solar panels at his vacation and retirement home in Crooked River Ranch, tapping into solar energy was something he had wanted to do since he was a child.

“I wanted to be self-sufficient, if that’s possible, and don’t want to have any more coal-fired power plants,” he said.

He’s been tracking how much power his 3-kilowatt system has generated, he said. So far, on a sunny day the house takes about 4 kilowatts to run — but the solar panels produce 18 to 20 kilowatts.

By November, he can build up about 2,000 kilowatts in credit to use over the winter months. And in April, he can start building up those credits again.

“I consider it a neat way to go,” Gerig said.

Out of the 52,716 Pacific Power customers in Deschutes County, 184 had set up a net metering system attached to solar panels as of December, according to information provided by the company.

With 1 out of every 287 Deschutes County customers hooked up with a net metering system, the county’s rate is more than twice that of Pacific Power customers across the state, where 1 out of every 607 residences or businesses has a net meter.

“It was an impressive number,” said Tom Gauntt, spokesman with Pacific Power.

And it’s not just Pacific Power customers.

Of Central Electric Cooperative’s 24,500 customers, there are 55 solar photovoltaic systems, and at least 76 customers with solar hot water heaters, said spokesman Alan Guggenheim.

And the Energy Trust, which provides financial rebates for Pacific Power and Portland General Electric customers who put up panels, provided incentives for 365 customers statewide in 2009 — including 54 in Deschutes County.

Solar benefits

Central Oregon has a number of benefits that make solar a good option, said Lizzy Rubado, senior residential solar project manager with the Energy Trust of Oregon. The region has long, clear, sunny days in the summer, and often clear winter days as well — in an average year, more sun hits Bend rooftops than Miami rooftops, she said.

Studies measuring the amount of solar radiation shows that the area gets more solar energy than Florida, with its storms and hurricanes, said Frank Vignola, director of the University of Oregon’s Solar Radiation Monitoring Lab.

And even the Southwest, with the sunniest spots in the country, is only about 10 to 20 percent better than Central Oregon, he said.

Nighttime temperatures can also get cool in Central Oregon, Vignola added, which helps make the solar panels more efficient.

Plus, Bend has fewer trees that could shade roofs, compared with other Oregon cities, Rubado said — another mark in favor of the city’s solar potential.

“Central Oregonians have everything going for them when it comes to taking the steps and going solar,” she said.

But given that, the region could step it up even more, Rubado said.

“Definitely the natural resources we have make Bend an excellent place for solar energy,” said Kelli Hewitt, owner of E2 Powered, a Bend company that installs solar panels. “The biggest problem in solar is, it’s still a pretty expensive technology.”

But that’s changing, she said.

Becoming cheaper

The cost of solar photovoltaic has gone down, dropping by about a quarter over the last couple years, while the tax incentives and rebates have been going up.

“Those constantly change, but are at record highs,” Hewitt said.

The rebates and tax credits can lower the cost of an average 3,000-watt photovoltaic system, which could provide a little more than 40 percent of a home’s energy, from $21,900 to $6,250, Rubado said.

The drop in costs seems to have bumped up interest, said Stephanie Manzo with Sunlight Solar Energy.

“Over the past year, we saw panel prices drop, and that helped make it more accessible for people,” she said.

In 2008, Sunlight Solar installed 18 systems across Oregon, she said, and in 2009 that more than quadrupled to between 76 and 80.

The popularity of solar systems in Central Oregon could be due to a number of factors, said Kathryn Gray, owner of urbansun, who has designed homes to be compatible with solar panels.

Beyond the tax credits, she said, people are often environmentally minded and want to be part of the energy solution.

“It’s been a combination of environment and economy, and then just the energy security, to have more certainty that in the future you’re going to have power and it’s going to be affordable,” Gray said.

Central Oregon has seen a lot of solar installations over the last decade, said Cylvia Hayes, with Bend-based 3EStrategies.

But what she’d like to see, she said, is more homes being built to take advantage of the abundant sunlight even without photovoltaic panels — facing south, and designed to stay cool in the summer and warm in the winter.

“That is the single best bang for the buck,” she said, adding that counties and cities should address passive solar designs into their building codes. “That’s a huge opportunity for us that often costs no addition money. It’s maybe not as showy and glamorous, but it’s really important and a low-hanging fruit.”

Another good step for Central Oregon, she said, would be to start thinking of passive and active solar projects for low-income housing, so that those homes are cheaper to run once they’re built.

Power to the grid and back

Selling back your excess solar energy: see how it works, Page A8