It was a good time for Mark Halsey, owner of Gene's Fish Fry on Route 4, to put solar power panels on the roof of his landmark, 1970s-era roadside stand. "It was nothing out of pocket; I did not put in one penny," said Halsey, whose father, Gene, started the seasonal business in 1961.
After photovoltaic (PV) panels went up late last summer, Halsey noticed that his bill for electricity, which he uses to run his extensive coolers, lights and other equipment, dropped by hundreds of dollars. With panels now supplying much of his power, his end-of-season monthly bill, which was running $800 or more, dropped to about $200. And he has gotten some new customers who were drawn to the panels and a sign in front of the business that touted fish "cooked by the sun."
Said Halsey, "Some new people have told me they stopped in because of the panels ... I am thrilled with the system. It is good that you can do something for the environment and save money at the same time." He said he got the idea to add solar power after seeing panels installed on the roof of a church near his home.
Seated at a picnic table, enjoying fried fish, longtime customers Judy and Ira Long said they support Halsey's foray into renewable energy. "I have been coming here every year since I was a teenager in 1966," said Judy Long, who works as the attendance officer at Averill Park High School. "These panels are the wave of the future, and it is good seeing Gene's keeping up with the times."
Expect to see more PV panels coming to a neighborhood near you. Last year was a record for the solar industry, as panel installations continued to climb as the price of panels fell, and the outlook for the industry remains, well, sunny.
"The market is absolutely rosy," said Mark Fobare, president and co-founder of Monolith Solar, a Rensselaer-based company that installed Halsey's PV system. "The number of people who use electricity is going up, the amount of electricity each person uses is going up, and my prices to install keep going down."
Located on Washington Street, in the shadow of the Amtrak passenger station, the company is building a 13,000-square-foot addition, and nearly doubling its workforce with plans to hire 40 more workers. Just four years after its founding, Monolith has grown to become the third-largest business firm in the state, according to the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. "We just added a residential installation program on Jan. 1. We have reached a critical mass," said Fobare.
So far, the company has installed more than 200 systems at businesses and institutions. They are producing enough power to support the equivalent of about 1,000 homes, and are reducing greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel-fired power plants by the equivalent of about 650 cars.
Many Monolith customers have deals like Halsey, in which they put no money down to essentially lease a PV system and agree to pay a set price during the next decade for power that costs less than from a traditional utility, said Fobare. His company does all paperwork and obtains federal and state subsidies that can pay for up to half the cost of an installation. "All they needed from me was my signature," said Halsey.
2012 was a "historic and busy year," according to a recent study by Solar Energy Industries Association, with new PV installations skyrocketing by 76 percent, for a total of about 3,300 megawatts — equivalent to about seven fossil fuel-fired power plants. And of the ten largest PV systems in the U.S., eight were installed last year. Overall, the total amount of installed PV in the U.S. reached the equivalent of 16 regular power plants.
At the same time, the price of PV dropped by 27 percent as the amount of low-cost panels continued to grow, despite an increase in U.S. tariffs on imported Chinese solar panels. More than 83,000 U.S. homes added PV, bringing the total homes so equipped to more than 300,000.
Sales are predicted to grow 30 percent this year, and part of that growth stems from a "revolution" in leasing programs like the one Halsey used, the report found. Such plans accounted for more than half of all new residential systems added last year.
New York state ranked tenth on the report's national list of new PV systems, at about 60 megawatts. A megawatt can supply about 1,000 homes annually. That was the same amount as was installed in 2011, when New York ranked seventh on the national list. In 2012, New York was passed on the list by states including Nevada, Massachusetts, Hawaii, Maryland and Texas, while overtaking Pennsylvania, Colorado and New Mexico. The leading state for new PV remained California, which installed about 17 times more than New York.
In a bid to move New York up, Gov. Andrew Cuomo last year launched his NY-Sun program. In March, the program awarded $46 million for 76 projects, expected to generate 52 megawatts of electricity, enough to support the needs of 52,000 average homes. By year's end, arrays will be installed at businesses, municipal buildings and larger sites in 33 counties.
Overall, Cuomo hopes to quadruple the annual PV installations in the state this year, which would bring New York up to the level of New Jersey and keep companies like Monolith very busy. The governor also expanded a tax credit program, which previously allowed homeowners who bought a system to get a personal income tax credit equal to 25 percent of the system cost. Now, people like Halsey who lease — and by extension, Monolith, which can offer no-money-down deals in return for reaping that credit — can get a tax credit worth up to 12.5 percent for a lease system.
bnearing@timesunion.com • 518-454-5094 • @Bnearing10
Read more: http://www.timesunion.com/business/article/Sun-rising-on-solar-deals-4488866.php#ixzz2SXHlfUSj
No comments:
Post a Comment