Re: Southside going solar/ROOF DESIGN ALERT
From: David L. Mandel (75407.2361compuserve.com)
Date: Wed, 28 Jun 95 23:04 CDT
The good news is that if our general meeting approves the idea on Saturday
(99.9999% certain, I'd say), by next month we should be generating electricity
on our roofs.

Our local municipal utility district (SMUD) is publicly owned and for the last
few years anyway very progressive thinking. (We the voters were the first
anywhere to shut down a nuclear power plant by election back in the late '80s).
Anyway, ... for a while now SMUD has been asking homeowners to allow
photovoltaic panels installed on their roofs in a pilot project to try to
demonstrate viability. It's now expanding, and a half-dozen of us met last night
with the head of the program. Assuming we OK it, he'll be out next week with the
contractor who installs them and they'll put them on any and all of our
appropriate south- and west-facing roof space. The common house has two great
areas, and next-best are two big stretches of carport, if some technical
difficulties can be overcome (corrugated metal roofs, no direct access to a
meter). Most likely a number of houses as well. For this privilege, we pay a
token $4 a month (the same as a single homeowner elsewhere). The purpose of the
fee, apparently, is to show the world that significant numbers of people are
willing to pay a little extra for clean energy. We also get the predicted
benefit of cooler homes since the sun will not beat on as much roof, plus roof
shingles that will last longer. And anytime SMUD raises rates, the $4 is
reduced, reaching zero when rates have risen 15 percent.

For now, all the electricity goes to SMUD and we pay for our consumption as
usual. But the contract is for 10 years, and while they haven't decided for
sure, the expectation is that after that we could buy the panels (30 year
expected life) for a song and start keeping the power. They'd be rewired so that
on hot sunny summer days, our meters would run backward.

Now the somewhat bad news, which I especially want to convey to those of you
still at the design stage or even earlier: A lot of our residences have nice
south- and west-facing roofs that would be great, but they're broken up by
various pipes and vents, as roofs tend to be. With a little foresight, most of
these things could have gone on the north and east sides for little or no extra
effort or cost. We may try to move some. Another problem is that for aesthetic
reasons, our roofs have a lot of bumps and turns and dormers and other angles
that decrease the appropriate space. I'm not sure we would have done that a lot
differently, but maybe a little.

So even if your utility doesn't offer this yet (have them contact SMUD for
information!), think ahead when you design those roofs. And I'll let you know
how it goes.

David Mandel, Southside Park Cohousing, Sacramento

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