Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: going solar

[Lashbrook, Stephan (lashbrook]

Good information, Don.  keep up the good work down there in the sunshine.

Stephan



-----Original Message-----
From: don i arkin [mailto:shardon5 [at] juno.com]
Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2001 11:36 AM
To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
Subject: [C-L]_going solar


Hi,  The other comments have been right on, particularly the one about
the relative cost-effectiveness of solar hot water.  Also, SMUD,
Sacramento Municipal Utility District, is one of the leading advocates of
solar electric in the country and offers  discounted prices on solar
devices that they purchase in bulk.  You will need some local expertise
to help with selection, mounting, and sizing questions.  One point to
consider is even if your utility company offers net-metering, meaning
that your meter runs backwards when you are producing more powere than
you are using meaning that you are getting paid full retail price for the
electricity that you generate, if you in fact generate more than you use
over an entire billing period, you will still only get paid some
fractional percentage of that rate for the excess.  This excess would
probably destroy your payback calculations.  Therefore, if payback
concerns are a factor you want to size your system to more or less
balance your usage for whatever billing periods are used by your utility.
 I am guessing that your CH uses a lot less electricity than your 10
units so you might want to reconsider where that electricity is going.
        Of course, you may have already chosen the CH because you had
figured out the advantages of running all of your panels through one
inverter rather than the 10 you would need for the separate homes.
There are ways around that, especially in cohousing, but they may not be
possible depending on how the individual units were wired.  
        Here in Tucson we have a non-profit Tucson Solar Association 
that offers help with projects like this.
They have helped us at Sonora Coho purchase and get ready to install a
2.2 kw system on our CH as well as some other individual systems. Even
with their help it has been an involved effort partly due to the changing
rules as Tucson Electric Power wrestles back and forth with the State
Utilities Commission as their membership changes from a majority in favor
of alternatives to one against and back again.  One could hope that in
Californis's current state it would be becoming easier to pursue this
course, but with our current federal government, that would be only a
hope.
        Good luck on a good project.
        Don Arkin
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