When professional snowboarder Austin Smith decided he was going to build a home on Bend’s west side, one of the first design elements he employed was a south-facing roof. With solar panels on top, he would be able to maximize the amount of energy he could harness from the sun.

There were multiple reasons to put the panels on his home but doing his part to reverse global warming was most important.

“I love snowboarding, and I love winter, and I love consistent and stable winters and those are becoming fewer and far between with the changing temperatures of the world, so we gotta do what we can,” said Smith, who makes regular appearances in snowboard videos and magazines.

Smith, 32, is part of a small but growing army of Bend residents who are turning to solar power to heat and power their homes. Some do it for environmental reasons and others for economic benefits. While there is a substantial upfront cost, over time the installation cost is balanced out by lower monthly power bills.

The state of Oregon is helping, too, with incentives. House Bill 2021 appropriates $50 million to the Oregon Department of Energy to award grants for community renewable energy projects, which could be used to fund solar panel installation costs. The Oregon Department of Energy expects to roll out the program in Spring 2022.

Robert Del Mar, senior policy analyst at the Oregon Department of Energy, said the city of Bend has been one of the best participants in other state incentive programs. These include the Solar + Storage Rebate Program, which has also been allocated additional funding by the Legislature to issue rebates for projects.

“Bend is certainly holding its own and performed well in the first round of the solar and storage rebate program,” said Del Mar. “Residential projects did really well in Bend. The Bend contractors came through in delivering those incentives to Central Oregon.”

Del Mar said the Oregon Department of Energy could not provide an accurate number of homes with panels since not all panel owners participated in a past Oregon Department of Energy program.

The hope for Smith, and others who purchase the panels, is that they can achieve net-zero usage, that is, what they use in energy equals the amount of energy their panels produce.

“That is the goal, but it’s hard to predict because everyone’s energy use is different,” said Smith, a Bend resident since 2000. “It’s hard to say until I have lived in that home for a year.”

The panels on Smith’s home were installed by Bend-based Sunlight Solar Energy Inc., the oldest solar electric company in Central Oregon. Sunlight Solar’s President Paul Israel said there has been increased demand for his products during the pandemic, partially driven by the influx of remote workers moving to Bend from other states.

“A lot of folks are coming up from California and had solar in California and know that it works,” said Israel, who founded the company in 1988. “They want to decrease their utility bills, especially if they are retiring, and so they want to invest in solar.”

Israel said his business is up 25% over sales a year ago. In pre-pandemic times, the number of installations was typically growing about 5-10% a year. The only thing that is keeping growth from reaching an even faster pace is a limited workforce. There simply aren’t enough qualified journeyman electricians to hire, he said.

In addition to boosting sales, COVID-19 is also having an impact on costs. Due to supply chain disruptions, the cost of materials is making the panels 10% more expensive compared to pre-pandemic times. However, prices are still vastly cheaper compared to a decade ago.

For example, a typical home these days can have 16, 350-watt solar panels installed for around $18,000, said Israel, compared to around $28,000 in the early 2010s. Costs for materials are lower, and there are also subsidies and rebates that reduce installation costs. Pacific Power, for example, offers a $900 rebate on solar panel installations.

While the installation price may sound steep, Israel said the return on the investment can be achieved in 10 to 16 years — the number of years is often determined by roof orientation. A home with a south-facing roof will generate more electricity than a home with an east-west facing roof, said Israel.

Pacific Power customers can also take advantage of “net metering,” which takes summertime surplus electricity and rolls it forward to the winter months. This makes it possible to achieve net-zero over the course of 12 months.

Businesses and other public entities are also getting in on the lower costs of solar panels, installing them on building rooftops and yards.

Deschutes County Commissioner Phil Chang advocates large panel installations on big-box store rooftops.

“The economy of scale for doing a larger installation is big,” said Chang in an email. “I’d rather we emphasize incentives or maybe even mandates to make large rooftop installations happen before we focused too much on residential.”

But Chang still advocates putting solar panels on residential roofs over solar panel farms in rural parts of the county.

“I wish we could fill up all the large roofs in the county with solar panels before we used up precious open space,” he said.

Smith, the snowboarder, expects to see more solar panels on Bend rooftops in the years to come but thinks many residents are still in the dark about solar panels, the costs, and the benefits. He recommends getting a local solar panel supplier to conduct an audit to determine if a house is a good candidate for the panels.

“Many people are good potential solar producers, but they haven’t asked the question of how to get them and how the whole setup works,” said Smith. “I think once you break it down financially as well there is no reason not to look into it. Don’t be afraid to ask them questions.”