Pennsylvania Gets in the Solar Game

Pennsylvania's new solar rebate program is now open for business.

Here's a link the article from the Philadelphia Inquirer:

http://www.philly.com/philly/busines...ram_opens.html

"Rebates of up to 35 percent are available on a first-come, first-served basis to owners of homes and small businesses looking to offset the cost of buying and installing solar-energy systems."

"... the new state rebate, along with federal tax credits of up to 30 percent, would enable Pennsylvanians to get as much as a 50 percent break on the cost of a solar-energy system."

"The price of an average 5-kilowatt residential unit is $35,000 to $40,000. Experts say that investment will be recouped in eight to 10 years - through reduced energy costs and from selling unused power into the grid and alternative energy credits to utilities."

"Another impetus to going solar now, Rendell said, is the likely event of double-digit rate increases by utilities when state caps are lifted in 2011."

"Saying it was 'embarrassing' that New Jersey and Maryland had instituted solar financial-aid programs long before Pennsylvania, Rundgren said: 'It's about time . . . the state is going to start putting its foot in the water.'"

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To some, a government program to encourage development of solar technology is a boondoggle and a monument to government waste. As somebody who worries about bloated government I can see their points. However, this isn't exactly like "The bridge to nowhere" or a grant to fund research on the favorite colors of various sea creatures. This is more like investment in the Apollo program in the sixties. It might encourage development of technology that will be beneficial in ways we don't even know about. It will create high-tech jobs immediately. If small solar production projects proliferate it will negate the need for at least some investment in construction of the conventional power plants that will no doubt be needed to meet the growing need for power in our country.

Township Permits Taking Longer Than Expected

V.D. of groSolar called today. The township is taking longer than groSolar expected to approve the project and issue permits. As soon as they sign off the system is going in.

I haven't heard from the homeowners association at all since I sent the application (for exterior change) paperwork to them, either. That's not something that we're going to hold this up for.

How to Sell SRECs

You might recall that we are unsure what we will do with the SRECs our system will generate, as covered in a prior post:

http://solarpowr.blogspot.com/2009/04/its-all-about-srecs.html

We don't want to be overburdened with the process of selling the SRECS ourselves -- we don't even understand the process yet. On the other hand, we don't want to enroll with a traditional broker because they just take too much of the proceeds of SREC sales. I may have found a solution.



http://www.srectrade.com/

SRECTrade provides full SREC buying and selling services at minimal cost. As a matter of fact, there is no cost for the seller at all, and only a 3% commission on each SREC sale payable by the buyer. The company's website tells it all (this excerpt is from the "About Us" page):

...but soon shifted their attention to the inefficient SREC trading market in New Jersey. Residential solar producers and the utilities that wanted their SRECs were having a difficult time connecting. Brokers took advantage of this disconnect by purchasing SRECs from individual producers and selling them in bulk to utilities, often with a price markup. Buyers and sellers of SRECs were frustrated by the primitive nature of the exchange, the lack of transparency of fair SREC pricing, and the power of the brokers.These complaints were answered with SRECTrade's online auction platform, launched in August 2008.

Amazingly enough, the complaints cited in that excerpt are almost identical to the ones I made (or that I was thinking, at least) in my previous post on the subject.

The process seems effortless through the EASYBID mechanism they offer. It looks as though after an SREC seller is registered they can set an SREC price through EASYBID and let SRECTrade handle the rest of the transaction on a monthly basis, including direct deposit of the proceeds of each monthly SREC auction.

It appears that this company offers solar power producers the best value combined with convenience when it comes to selling SRECs. Maximizing the payback and minimizing the confusion and fear factor will encourage more homeowners to invest in solar electric systems. That's what this blog is all about.

As we register with SRECTrade and learn more about this company and the process I'll post about it.

Black is Out

M.C. of groSolar called to fill me in on what he'd found out about the black-framed panels. First, he educated me. The black-framed panels I've been looking at aren't just black-framed -- the panels themselves are black. These are less efficient than the bluish ones. We'd be sacrificing efficiency and kilowatts by going for the trendier look.

On a more practical level, the black frames and panels are newer (and scarcer) and he thinks it would be months before he could get enough black panels, frames and mounting brackets. Not only do we not want to wait months, we also have to get this system online by July 31 or we lose our New Jersey rebate.

So we're sticking with the bluish panels and grayish frames.

Legal Hassle -- NOT

For the past week we've been getting calls from an energy company whose name we didn't recognize. When they sent a more detailed email yesterday I finally figured out who they must be -- the company that swallowed the company that swallowed the company that we originally signed the contract with for our solar energy system in 2007.

We haven't heard from them since Fall 2008, and that was only when we repeatedly called them to ask when they were going to build our system (the answer was always "we don't know"). Fast-forward six months to May 2009, over two years after we signed on with them. What did they want? Why, to schedule a site visit pursuant to a June 16-18 installation date. What? There is an obvious disconnect here.

We did a lot of worrying about this overnight. They neglected us for about eight months, and we were getting to the point where we were risking expiration of our New Jersey rebate, so we signed with another company in April (March 31 actually). I think we were within our rights to switch but we were both imagining an expensive legal hassle if they tried to claim that we were still obligated to work with them.

This morning I replied to their email telling them politely but firmly that we had moved on. Much to our relief they were very gracious and even apologetic about the whole matter. It sounds like they now have their act together but we fell through the cracks while they were busy acquiring themselves.

What a relief...

Installation Postponed

Installation of our system has been delayed. It's going to take longer for our township to review and approve the project and issue the permits. They say that they need to have it in house for a week to examine, which sounds perfectly reasonable to me.

This might also give us a chance to work out another minor issue. I had mistakenly believed that the solar panels to be installed were the black-framed ones, which look slicker:

Just the other day I came to realize that we were getting the traditional ones with grayish frames:

We're thrilled either way but we'd prefer the black ones. The difference is purely cosmetic but black-framed panels appear to be the wave of the future. We asked groSolar if we can upgrade and made it clear that we understand that it might cost more.

I also want to look into that system component that would tell us exactly how much power our system is generating.

Project Manager Comes By -- Installation to Start on Thursday

E.F. came out to the house today. He's the groSolar project manager who will be running the job. He needed to scope a few things out and get some details needed for a permit. Honestly, every person from groSolar is fantastic, each one one cooler than the last.

The truckload of materials will arrive Thursday morning (May 7) and they'll start building the system then. The crew will be small -- three people including E.F. It seems like a lot of work for three. He thinks they'll put in three full days, including Saturday, and then it will be finished.

He also told me that he likes to get the customers "involved" in the job as much as possible and suggested that I carry a few of the panels up to the roof myself. If this happens I hope I can get somebody to take my picture while I'm doing it.

One thing I'm disappointed about is that our system won't include a device to display how much energy we produce. That's something I was looking forward to. There is hardware that can do this but E.F. says that we're talking six hundred bucks to start with. We can think about adding it later. There's a possibility that this information will be available online, either through our account with the electric company, our account with NJCEP, or both. Otherwise, the only way we'll be able to know exactly what we're producing ourselves and what we still need from the grid is to study our electric bills. Bummer.

The application for exterior modifications arrived from our homeowners association arrived in the mail yesterday so I filled it out and attached a sketch. I also included a note of apology for the last-minute notice, explaining that until a few days ago we thought this wouldn't happen until July. Hopefully they won't try to jerk us around. It would take a lot of effort not to laugh if they called and told us that we can't start work until we've received their approval.