saving green
utility incentives for solar power

Sixteen east-facing solar panels are atop Mike Harvey’s D Street home - wired together, plugged into a converter and connected to a standard Xcel Energy meter. On sunny days, the system will funnel nearly 3,500 watts into the main Xcel power grid. Harvey is one of the first homeowners in Chaffee County to take advantage of renewable energy incentives offered by Colorado utility companies. Xcel is rebating him $13,900 - about 50 percent of the cost to install the system. Plus, the company buys power from the panels as part of the Net Metering program. Scel’s Net Metering program “measures excess energy produced by the PV system that flows back onto our grid. Net meters move forward when electricity flows from our grid into your home and backward when power flows from your PV system onto our grid,” as explained on their Web-site, www.xcelenergy.com. This may reduce Harvey’s monthly energy bill by more than 80 percent. The system also entitles Harvey to a $2,000 federal tax credit.

“Economically it seems to make sense,” Harvey said Friday as the panels were installed. “At some point, we’ll pay off our capital investment by paying a lot less in electricity. Plus we have an environmental ethic and we want to do everything we can to reduce our consumptive footprint.”

Colorado voters agree. In 2004, they passed Amendment 37, requiring large utility companies to get 10 percent of their energy from renewable sources. As a result, Xcel created the Solar Rewards program, offering an up-front rebate for homeowners wanting to install solar systems. This past spring (2007), Gov. Bill Ritter signed into law a bill doubling the renewable requirement to 20 percent for large utility companies taking the rural electric association requirement to 10 percent by 2020. Another bill that passed from the state House of Representatives would standardize the net metering system allowing home-based renewable energy systems to interact with the grid.

Xcel spokeswoman Ethnie Grove said the company will achieve the 10 percent renewable requirement by the end of the year - three years earlier than voters mandated. Xcel has paid $9.4 million in rebates and credits since the requirement was enacted. “We are confident we can achieve the 20 percent standard by 2020,” she said.

Tim Klco, owner of Peak Solar Designs, installed the Harvey system Friday. Through the net metering provision, he said, Harvey can treat the main energy grid as a bank. “During the day, when they are out, they’ll be putting power in,” Klco explained. “At night, when they are using power, they’ll be taking it out.” Klco is hoping more locals take advantage of the new renewable energy laws. He formerly lived in an off-grid solar panel house near Cotopaxi. Last year, he moved to Salida and started Peak Solar Designs to be on the cutting edge of what he and Gov. Ritter call “the new energy economy.”

“These new rebates have stirred the market and made it attractive for people to do it on the grid,” Klco said, adding that Chaffee County is an ideal place to capture solar energy. “We have so much sun here and we have people with imagination and a general desire to do the right thing.” For Harvey, the solar panels are a source of pride. He said he knows he is not only energizing his own house with a clean energy source, but is supplying the whole system, helping Xcel reach its renewable energy goals.

“I just think it’s cool to have this mini power plant sitting on top of my roof,” Harvey said.

Tim Klco, left, and Dennis Beaver of Peak Solar Designs install part of a 3,440-watt solar energy system atop the Salida home of Mike Harvey Friday. Harvey is among the first Chaffee County residents to install a solar system capable of tying into the main Xcel Energy power grid.

Photo by Jason Starr
by Jason Starr
Karen Weinsheimer updated this story which
first ran in The Mountain Mail