Solar Co-ops -Together We Can Do It Ourselves

To Go Solar, Start Local Co-Ops Can Help You Jump Through Hoops and Start Saving Energy By Elizabeth D. Festa Special to The Washington Post Saturday, September 19, 2009 One March day in 2008, Ketch Ryan, a long-time environmentalist, sent a message to her neighborhood group e-mail list in the town of Chevy Chase, inviting neighbors to see the modest two-kilowatt solar-panel array she had just installed on her south-facing roof to convert sunlight into household electricity. "Loads of people came," Ryan said. They asked questions about the process and how to do it themselves. The Common Cents Solar Co-op was born then and there, founded by Ryan and neighbor Kirk Renaud, who runs BioBrite, a light-therapy business in Bethesda. "People said: 'I don't know if I could do this. I don't have the time.' I said we could all do it together; we could all go solar," said Ryan, a former policy analyst at the Environmental Protection Agency who now teaches art at Sidwell Friends School. Common Cents negotiates discounts from installers, fills out paperwork, applies for rebates, bundles solar credits, helps with scheduling and even arranges to get house keys to let in contractors. Homeowners sign contracts with and make payments to Common Cents, which then pays the contractors. The co-op helped Helen Price, a resident of the town of Chevy Chase, install an array of Sunslates, which resemble regular slate shingles but actually function like solar panels. "I am not sure how all the finances work," she said. "All I know is I saved money and they really facilitated things, and it is a community thing." Solar energy co-ops like Common Cents are forming across the region as neighbors band together to save money, take a stand on greener living and chaperone one another through the installation process, from roof assessments to a final hookup to the local utility's power grid. Each co-op has its own approach, finance arrangements and challenges. Although there are a cornucopia of financial incentives, rebates, tax credits, renewable energy credits and, lately, falling prices, homeowners are often flummoxed by the pages of paperwork involved, vendor selection, regulatory approvals, permitting, inspections, utility hookups and historic preservation issues. "At the end of last summer, I said, 'it's time; I want to do this.' " said Lisa Heaton of Bethesda. "So I Googled 'Maryland solar' and contacted a couple of those companies. But it was just Greek. I had some phone conversations. It was still too big and scary. It was intimidating. And I am not easily intimidated. My background is science," she said. Heaton's 1940s center-hall colonial ended up with a 4.6-kilowatt system consisting of two solar arrays -- one set facing south, the other facing west, to make the most of the sun's rays. Renaud said, "Members get substantial solar-system discounts and access to related discounted services like solar renewable-energy credit sale proceeds, energy audits, solar attic fans, solar computer systems, maintenance plans." There are no membership fees to join the co-op; one joins by signing a contract for a solar system. In the District, the idea for the Mount Pleasant Solar Cooperative was sparked three years ago after the 12-year-old sons of neighbors Anya Schoolman and Jefferson Morley watched Al Gore's global-warming documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," and wanted to take action, their parents said. Fliers were distributed, neighbors talked, and Schoolman, now the co-op president, began researching every aspect of providing solar electricity for homes in her historic neighborhood. In July, Schoolman, a consultant to foundations and nonprofit groups on environmental strategy and program design, became the first member of the co-op to install a special thin-film solar technology that adheres to flat roofs. About 10 more solar installations were completed earlier this month. Schoolman and Morley expect nearly 50 homeowners to install rooftop solar pieces this fall. The co-op claims that its 50 solar-powered homes will cut carbon emissions by 6.7 million pounds over the panels' expected 25-year life span. Unlike with Common Cents, the Mount Pleasant co-op doesn't handle the process from top to bottom. Instead, there is a lot of discussion, and informed homeowners are proactive in finding what's right for them, Schoolman said. "We do try to get discounts for our members. We do a lot of the work of educating our members, and present to contractors a group of people that have adequate sunny roof space and have a good sense of the costs," Schoolman said. "We have four main partners working with us. What we did was give our members a choice," Schoolman notes. "Even in a neighborhood as homogeneous architecturally as Mount Pleasant, there is not one single solution that fits all homes," Schoolman said. The Mount Pleasant co-op did negotiate with an aggregator of solar renewable energy credits [SRECs] to pay homeowners who choose to install solar photovoltaic systems. These systems generate revenue streams for homeowners where a SREC is equivalent to 1,000 kilowatt-hours, said Josh Goldberg, co-founder of solar photovoltaic installer and SREC broker Astrum Solar in Annapolis Junction. A 3-kilowatt solar array will produce an estimated 3,600 kilowatt-hours of electricity per year, as Maryland and D.C. software calculate it, so you would get 3.6 renewable-energy credits, Goldberg explained. The amount per credit get is 70 to 75 percent of the penalty Pepco has to pay for not using renewable energy, or about $250 to $300 per credit annually, he said. The amount will decline over time because the penalty rate for Pepco will, also. Goldberg estimates that a 3-kilowatt system would pay a homeowner almost $9,000 in SRECs over 15 years. The Capitol Hill neighborhood will also be facing historic-preservation, as well as flat-roof or aged-roof issues when members of the Capitol Hill Energy Co-Op's solar roof project undertake their installations next spring. The group is schooling itself on financial, regulatory and structural issues and is reviewing the lessons of other co-ops, especially Mount Pleasant, which has acted as a mentor. Mike Barrette, who leads the project, estimated that "between 20 and 30 households will come through in the first wave of installations in the spring." The co-op is leaning toward the Mount Pleasant model of screening installers and having members decide which ones to go with, said Barrette, who works in the Environmental Protection Agency's enforcement division. "Because of falling prices, we want to have our estimates as close to the install as possible rather than pre-negotiating a rate six to eight months before the installation happens," he said. "You need about 10 households in order to get enough interest from installers where you might be able to get a price advantage," said Fred Ugast, who heads the SREC broker U.S. Photovoltaics in Frederick. "There is not a lot of room now for discounts. A glut of panels has reduced hardware pricing." Lisa Heaton and her family were looking at a $45,000 install job for their total 4.6-kilowatt systems, but they got a $40,000 quote and signed a contract for it through Common Cents in November 2008. "Then because of the power of the co-op," the price dipped to the $35,000 she paid in April, Heaton said. Fliers from a solar installation company now promise that system for less than $32,000. The total cost of solar photovoltaic for a residence is also slashed by a 30 percent federal tax rebate for any photovoltaic system; hefty state grants -- Heaton got a check for more than $10,000 from Maryland -- and rebates tied to the size of the system, property tax credits and future value of SRECs. The credits are tied to the public utility's requirement to buy renewable energy, and they have declining value over time. Chesapeake Solar estimated a $16,710 future value of SRECs for a 4.86-kilowatt system. A $31,600 system in the District would cost $10,300 after rebates, not counting the SRECs, according to one company's pitch. A smaller array, under 3 kilowatts, which is more suitable for the city's rowhouses, would cost less than $7,000. A Virginia co-op that never really got off the ground, Solar Mount Vernon, said it was serious about bringing solar power to its Northern Virginia community, but president Eleanor Whitaker said that the logistics proved daunting. "Making it happen can very nearly be a full-time job," she said. Goldberg said Virginia is a tough sell for financial incentives for solar power. Virginia offers only the federal incentives, not the substantial state rebates offered by other states like New Jersey, Maryland, Pennsylvania and the District. Also, there is no market for SRECs in Virginia, Goldberg said, because Dominion Power is not required to buy them.