Apparently the solar systems installation industry of Central Oregon will get another competitor: Advanced Energy Systems.  The physical location is currently unknown but the Bend phone number is listed on the company’s website as 541-520-5590.

The above image is from an advertisement in the October 21, 2009 Cascade Business News and the following announcement was in the September Economic Development for Central Oregon Newsletter:

New Member: Advanced Energy Systems – Bronze
With a new office in Bend, AES Advanced Energy Systems has expanded from the west side of the Cascades. With 25 years of hands-on involvement in the renewable energy industry, Advanced Energy Systems is dedicated to providing the best experience possible for the business owner with the acquisition and operation of a renewable energy system. Advanced Energy Systems specializes in the design of commercial solar electric systems and commercial solar water heating systems.

More Sun for Less: Solar Panels Drop in Price
By Kate Galbraith – New York Times -August 26, 2009

When Greg Hare looked into putting solar panels on his ranch-style home in Magnolia, Tex., last year, he decided he could not afford it. “I had no idea solar was so expensive,” he recalled.

But the cost of solar panels has plunged lately, changing the economics for many homeowners. Mr. Hare ended up paying $77,000 for a large solar setup that he figures might have cost him $100,000 a year ago.

“I just thought, ‘Wow, this is an opportunity to do the most for the least,’ ” Mr. Hare said.

For solar shoppers these days, the price is right. Panel prices have fallen about 40 percent since the middle of last year, driven down partly by an increase in the supply of a crucial ingredient for panels, according to analysts at the investment bank Piper Jaffray.

The price drops — coupled with recently expanded federal incentives — could shrink the time it takes solar panels to pay for themselves to 16 years, from 22 years, in places with high electricity costs, according to Glenn Harris, chief executive of SunCentric, a solar consulting group. That calculation does not include state rebates, which can sometimes improve the economics considerably.

American consumers have the rest of the world to thank for the big solar price break.

Until recently, panel makers had been constrained by limited production of polysilicon, which goes into most types of panels. But more factories making the material have opened, as have more plants churning out the panels themselves — especially in China.

“A ton of production, mostly Chinese, has come online,” said Chris Whitman, the president of U.S. Solar Finance, which helps arrange bank financing for solar projects.

At the same time, once-roaring global demand for solar panels has slowed, particularly in Europe, the largest solar market, where photovoltaic installations are forecast to fall by 26 percent this year compared with 2008, according to Emerging Energy Research, a consulting firm. Much of that drop can be attributed to a sharp slowdown in Spain. Faced with high unemployment and an economic crisis, Spain slashed its generous subsidy for the panels last year because it was costing too much.

Many experts expect panel prices to fall further, though not by another 40 percent.

Manufacturers are already reeling from the price slump. For example, Evergreen Solar, which is based in Massachusetts, recently reported a second-quarter loss that was more than double its loss from a year earlier.

But some manufacturers say that cheaper panels could be a good thing in the long term, spurring enthusiasm among customers and expanding the market.

“It’s important that these costs and prices do come down,” said Mike Ahearn, the chief executive of First Solar, a panel maker based in Tempe, Ariz.

First Solar recently announced a deal to build two large solar arrays in Southern California to supply that region’s dominant utility. But across the United States, the installation of large solar systems — the type found on commercial or government buildings — has been hurt by financing problems, and is on track to be about the same this year as in 2008, according to Emerging Energy Research.

The smaller residential sector continues to grow: In California, by far the largest market in the country, residential installations in July were up by more than 50 percent compared with a year earlier. With prices dropping, that momentum looks poised to continue.

John Berger, chief executive of Standard Renewable Energy, the company in Houston that put panels on Mr. Hare’s home, said that his second-quarter sales rose by more than 225 percent from the first quarter.

“Was that as a product of declining panel prices? Almost certainly yes,” Mr. Berger said.

Expanded federal incentives have also helped spur the market. Until this year, homeowners could get a 30 percent tax credit for solar electric installations, but it was capped at $2,000. That cap was lifted on Jan. 1.

Mr. Hare in Texas cited the larger tax credit, which sliced about $23,000 from his $77,000 bill, as a major factor in his decision to go solar, in addition to the falling panel prices. Sensing a good deal, he even got a larger system than he had originally planned — going from 42 panels to 64. The electric bill on his 7,000-square-foot house and garage has typically run $600 to $700 a month, but he expects a reduction of 40 to 80 percent.

Mr. Berger predicts that with panel prices falling and the generous federal credit in place, utilities will start lowering rebates they offer to homeowners who put panels on their roofs.

One that has already done so is the Salt River Project, the main utility in Phoenix, which cut its homeowners’ rebate by 10 percent in June. Lori Singleton, the utility’s sustainability manager, said the utility had recently spent more than it budgeted for solar power, a result of a surge in demand as more solar installers moved into Arizona and government incentives kicked in.

California has been steadily bringing down its rebates. An impending 29 percent cut in rebates offered within the service area of Pacific Gas and Electric, the dominant utility in Northern California, means that “with the module price drop over the last few months, it is pretty much a wash,” Bill Stewart, president of SolarCraft, an installer in Novato, Calif., said in an e-mail message.

Even if falling rebates cancel out some of the solar panel price slump, more innovative financing strategies are also helping to make solar affordable for homeowners. This year about a dozen states — following moves by California and Colorado last year — have enacted laws enabling solar panels to be paid off gradually, through increased property taxes, after a municipality first shoulders the upfront costs.

Some installers have adopted similar approaches. Danita Hardy, a homeowner in Phoenix, had been put off by the prospect of spending $20,000 for solar panels — until she spotted a news item about a company called SunRun that takes on the upfront expense and recovers its costs gradually, in a lease deal, essentially through the savings in a homeowner’s electric bill.

“I thought well, heck, this might be doable,” said Ms. Hardy, who wound up having to lay out only $800 to get 15 solar panels for her home.

Oregon canal piping projects win stimulus funds
From KTVZ.COM news sources – August 20, 2009

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced Thursday that the Bureau of Reclamation has identified two Challenge Grant projects in Central Oregon that will receive a $3.3 million share of $40 million coming to Oregon under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.  

Through the Challenge Grant Program’s Water Marketing and Efficiency Grants, Reclamation provides 50/50 cost share funding to states and irrigation and water districts for projects focused on water marketing, conservation and efficiency.  Projects are selected through a competitive process, based on their ability to meet the goal of improving sustainable water supplies in the western United States.  The projects include:

Main Canal Piping Project and Ponderosa Hydro plant, Swalley Irrigation District: $2,058,935 for this three stage/phase project that would complete piping of ¾ miles of canal, the design and construction of a 0.75 megawatt hydropower plant, and a solar telemetry project that would allow the District to use solar power for a system that monitors, measures and controls water.

Solar may be mandated, but officials here push for biomass
By Nick Budnick  – The Bulletin - April 18, 2009

After a key legislative deadline passed on Friday, Deschutes County officials are resorting to some creative politicking in the Capitol to change a state solar power requirement.

In 2007, Gov. Ted Kulongoski signed into law a requirement backed by the solar energy industry that all new public building projects include 1.5 percent of their spending on solar power, such as rooftop panels.

In Deschutes County, however, officials say that money could be better spent on a different alternative energy source dubbed biomass, or as Phil Chang of the Central Oregon Intergovernmental Council puts it, a “community-scale thermal energy project.”

In layperson’s terms, that means a stove that burns wood chips.
Chang said biomass heating projects are highly efficient and produce low emissions, and would also help Central Oregon by providing a market for the wood produced by forest thinning projects that “make the community safer” from fire risk.

He said that in the county’s new jail expansion project, providing heat with biomass rather than natural gas would have saved $90,000 to $100,000 a year.

Susan Ross, Deschutes County’s properties and facilities director, said that in the jail project, the state’s solar mandate will mean $500,000 will pay for panels that produce a month’s worth of the facility’s energy needs every year.

But if that same amount of money were spent on biomass, it would produce six months’ worth, she said, adding that biomass “is much more efficient.”

To try and change the state law, Deschutes County asked Sen. Chris Telfer, R-Bend, and Rep. Gene Whisnant, R-Sunriver, to carry Senate Bill 446. It would allow for other alternative and renewable energy sources, including biomass, to be substituted for solar power.

But in the 2009 Legislature, all bills are supposed to have hearings scheduled by April 17. Friday came and went, and SB 446 was not scheduled.

The bill had been assigned to the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee, where Chairwoman Jackie Dingfelder, D-Portland was reluctant to give a hearing to legislation she didn’t think would pass the House, the bill’s supporters say. She instructed the bill’s backers to win the support of Rep. Paul Holvey, D-Eugene, the sponsor of the original solar mandate bill that passed the Legislature in 2007.

That discussion is under way, said Erica Hagedorn of Deschutes County’s lobbying firm, Public Affairs Counsel, adding that she feels like the discussions with Holvey “are making positive strides.”

That still leaves the matter of the deadline that passed, however.

To get around the deadline, and pursue this debate about the future of cutting-edge alternative energy in Oregon, the county will now resort to an age-old maneuver known by an ungraceful term: the “gut and stuff.”

This refers to when lawmakers take a bill number used for one piece of legislation and remove its contents — the “gut” — to be replaced with different legislation entirely — the “stuff.”

The maneuver is designed to circumvent deadlines and accommodate late-breaking political agreements. When it occurs, a bill number alluding to one piece of legislation suddenly may contain a completely different one.

Hagedorn said she is confident another bill number can be found for the legislation, if the negotiations with Holvey bear fruit.

Telfer, the lead co-sponsor of SB 446, chalks the bill’s fate up to “politics.” She nevertheless said Dingfelder has been very helpful, and Telfer hopes a way can be found to “save taxpayers’ money.”

Chang concedes that the bill may face skepticism among environmentalists who fear that the demand for wood created by biomass power plants could eventually be more of a harm to the environment than a boon. But he said the smaller heating projects, essentially wood stoves, that he is promoting, would use far less wood and not threaten anything.

Hagedorn said the legislation’s backers soon should know whether it can proceed.

“I think we’ll know by the end of next week whether it will be ‘go’ or ‘no go,’” she said.

PVT Solar, the company spotlighted in the article below is not the only company that combines photovoltaic technology and thermal energy to produce more energy than the PV alone.

SolarWall, an international company with headquarters in Toronto, Ontario, has developed a number of products based on its original air heating wall system including combining the thermal wall with photovoltaics to create their SolarDuct PV/T and SolarWall PV/T products.

The SolarWall PV thermal (PV/T) co-generation system was tested at the Canadian National Solar Test Facility.  The results showed that by adding a solar thermal component to a PV array to capture excess heat the total solar efficiency was boosted to over 50%, comparied with 10 to 15% efficiency that is typical of most stand-alone PV modules.

It’s clear, given the cost of PV panels, that every amount of available energy produced by the panels including thermal energy will need to be captured and put to use in order to provide economically saleable systems.

# # #

Waste Not, Want Not: A New Approach to Solar
By Matthew L. Wald – New York Times – September 29, 2008

One of the limitations of solar photovoltaic systems is that, at the current state of the technology, no more than a quarter of the energy from the sun is converted to electric current. Most of the rest of the energy is lost as waste heat.

But Vinod Khosla, the founder of Sun Microsystems and now a technology entrepreneur and alternative-energy venture capitalist, says he’s found a solution that doubles or even triples the energy yield — a gargantuan leap in a field where engineers exult over the most incremental gains.

Mr. Khosla is funding a company called PVT Solar, of Berkeley, Calif., where engineers two years ago began trying to harness that wasted heat. In a sense, it was already being collected, either in the solar modules themselves, or underneath. (Solar arrays are often installed at an angle, to face the sun, thus creating a wedge-shaped space below for heat to collect.)

PVT’s founders decided the heat could be harnessed and pumped into the home for climate control, water heating and other uses. It is a sort of combined cycle for solar — a marriage of solar photovoltaic technology and solar thermal systems, which gather the sun’s energy in the form of heat.

Vinod Khosla, the former tech mogul and now energy venture capitalist, sees potential in PVT Solar. (Photo: Bloomberg)The company is currently testing electronic controllers that play traffic cop for the collected heat, pumping it automatically, using a small fan, to the basement hot-water heater, for example, or to individual rooms, or even to the swimming pool, as needs arise. If the heat is not needed in the building, the fan vents it to the outside.

Because solar panels perform better at cooler temperatures, removing heat from around the panels also has the effect of increasing their production on hot days — adding to the overall efficiency gains for the system.

And given that the system requires little or no additional infrastructure, it can be deployed with only a small amount of added cost.

The company, which remains skittish about sharing details, is still making refinements, including the possible placement of stones beneath the panels, if rooftops can support them. Stones, the engineers reckon, could absorb the heat and act as storage devices.

Gordon Handelsman, president of the company, said that he has installed “more than ten and less than 20″ PVT systems at this stage, though he was so apprehensive about the company’s intellectual property that he took down his Web site after receiving a call from this reporter.

“We make around 100 percent more energy than a regular PV system,” he said.

For his part, Mr. Khosla said that making use of the otherwise wasted heat can increase total system efficiency to over 50 percent. “Now the economics make sense,” he said.

Comments coming soon.

# # #

Amid Boom, Concerns at Small Solar Firms
Small-Scale Contractors Benefit From Interest in Solar Power
By Jan Ellen Spiegel- New York Times – September 24, 2008

Solar power is in the midst of a boom in the United States. High energy costs are one reason. But what may be more important are generous state and power company incentives and rebates, as well as tax credits that make solar systems affordable to many more people and businesses.

This surge has, in turn, created hundreds, if not thousands, of small businesses, mostly contractors and installers.

They are people like Glenn Barresi, an electrician in South Windsor, Conn., who got into the solar installation business in 2005, about a year after Connecticut instituted one of the most generous rebate programs in the country. His company, Solarbrite, has grown from two employees — Mr. Barresi and his father — to more than a half dozen. But, he said, if the rebates go away, “I’m out of business.”

While industry groups and experts are not predicting a bust, they are raising concerns that growth is about to be tempered. The solar power industry is experiencing growing pains over how power is financed and distributed. In the end, larger companies may gain the upper hand, and the incentives could decrease or even disappear.

“I think probably what we’re going to see is the gradual disappearance of the very small one-, two-, three-person company that does everything,” said Dave Ljungquist, associate director of project development at the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund.

The fund, which administers the state’s solar rebate program, has a list of more than two dozen approved installers, up from three when it began. “We’re going to see more larger companies where they have marketing specialists and where they can do enough business to get competitive pricing from distributors or the factory,” Mr. Ljungquist said.

The Solar Energy Industries Association, a trade group, estimates there are about 3,400 companies and organizations and 30,000 to 40,000 direct solar energy-related jobs in the United States, though calculating the overall economic benefit of the solar industry is difficult.

According to the Solar Center at North Carolina State University, which maintains a database, more than half the states now have rebates or incentives for solar power. Ninety-eight percent of solar installations are in those states, according to data compiled by Larry Sherwood, a consultant for the Interstate Renewable Energy Council. California, with the longest standing, most highly developed incentive programs, has the greatest share of the activity, including several hundred installers. Perhaps more important, the state has a long-term commitment to the incentives.

In Oregon, the number of installers has grown to 90 from 12 in about five years. And in an attempt to lure small manufacturers to Oregon, the state Economic and Community Development Department is offering incentives to businesses that make solar components like silicon, or devices like the inverters needed to transform solar energy from DC to AC.

“In my mind, it’s much better to have a program that’s sustainable over time and not a program that puts in a bucketload of installations at one time and then shuts down,” Mr. Sherwood said. “Otherwise, companies come in and then they leave. You can’t build a small-business infrastructure.”

New Jersey serves as an object lesson. Its generous rebate program had to be suspended after all the allotted money was spent. Contractors are finishing the backlog, but there is considerable uncertainty while the state’s Board of Public Utilities develops a new program, at least part of which is likely not to involve rebates.

Bill Condit, the chief operations officer of Trinity Solar in Freehold, N.J., which evolved from a heating and air conditioning company, said the suspension of the rebate program was a worrisome reminder of the solar hot-water boom and bust of the mid-1980s. At that time, too, generous rebates and tax credits spawned dozens of small solar companies. Almost all went out of business when the programs abruptly ended.

“For those who are here, we’re hoping that doesn’t happen” again, Mr. Condit said.

Bob Chew said he had seen this kind of exuberance play out before. A survivor of the solar thermal era, he got back into the solar business, starting a company called SolarWrights in Rhode Island, when the state began an incentive program. He said he found himself on the brink again when it ended suddenly in 2006, but he survived by following the money to Connecticut, New York and eventually the rest of New England.

“New Hampshire just announced a new program, so we just opened up an office in Portsmouth,” he said. “We follow the incentives.”

He’s gone from one part-time employee — himself — to more than 60. Sales bookings last year were $5.9 million, more than double the year before, and he expects to hit $20 million this year.

But Mr. Chew and others say incentives and rebates are only part of the solar small-business formula. “I think the perception is that you have to always throw money at this industry,” he said. “The incentive should be a crutch to help the industry grow until the crutch is no longer needed.”

Jeffery Wolfe and his wife founded groSolar in Vermont in 1998. Today, the company has 90 employees, distributes solar products nationally and does installations in a number of states. Mr. Wolfe said he expected sales to reach $60 million this year, about double last year.

Incentives, he said, helped him get to this point. But he added: “It’s a push and pull. Incentive programs create some market” for solar that “help create awareness that help create the culture that makes more demand for it.”

Federal tax credits have also been playing a role in creating demand, especially for commercial projects where the credits are worth 30 percent of the cost of a system. The industry has been worried that Congress will adjourn without extending the credits past their Dec. 31 expiration. It is still unclear if legislation to extend and even increase some of them will pass before Congress recesses.

Even if the credits expire, no one thinks the industry will disappear. The energy landscape is much changed and quality control much improved since the solar thermal debacle.

What may also determine whether small businesses will continue to dominate the industry are the so-called power purchase agreements. Those agreements are much like leasing a car. Instead of owning a solar system, a homeowner or business essentially leases power from a system on its property that is owned by another company. Such arrangements may be best managed by large companies, and there is already evidence that they are becoming popular alternatives, especially for commercial projects, when the initial cost is a stumbling block.

On Long Island, where the groundwork is being set for a unique commercial arrangement that will put a large amount of solar power into the grid, there is little concern that it will curb the enthusiasm for solar. Some 1,300 systems have been installed since the Long Island Power Authority instituted its rebate program in 2000.

Gordian Raacke, executive director of Renewable Energy Long Island, which provides contractor listings, said he received calls almost daily from companies that wanted to be added. “This is the very beginning of what I think will be a very rapidly expanding market,” he said. “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

There is no argument that conservation is the most effective way to reduce energy consumption.  But, just as we cannot drill our way out of the constant demand for oil, we cannot conserve or build our way out of the constant demand for the energy to heat and cool our homes and buildings.  By using green building techniques we can have a substantial effect on reducing energy consumption but it appears that no matter how much energy we conserve there will always be the demand for more and more energy.

By combining energy conservation, green building (and remodeling) techniques plus active and passive energy generation we can have the best of all worlds. 

One way to accomplish combining active and passive energy generation is to utilize Building Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV).  These are building materials that are capable of actively generating electical energy via built-in photovoltaics.  An example of a BIPV application are the skylights of the Boulder, Colorado REI store.

SolarWall, an international company with headquarters in Toronto, Ontario, has developed a number of products based on its original air heating wall system including combining the thermal wall with photovoltaics to create their SolarDuct PV/T and SolarWall PV/T products.

The SolarWall PV thermal (PV/T) co-generation system was tested at the Canadian National Solar Test Facility.  The results showed that by adding a solar thermal component to a PV array to capture excess heat the total solar efficiency was boosted to over 50%, comparied with 10 to 15% efficiency that is typical of most stand-alone PV modules.

REI has been a leader in green building design for decades. Because lighting is by far the biggest use of electricity in a retail store – typically accounting for nearly 60 percent of the total electricity usage – REI has installed rooftop photovoltaic panels on eleven of its stores including three in Oregon (Tualatin, Clackamas and Hillsboro), seven in California and one in Texas.  And, when they redesigned the Boulder REI in 2007, they included a solar skylight system that provides two percent of the store’s electricity needs through building integrated photovoltaics (BIPV).

Boulder REI Building Integrated Photovoltaic

REI’s goal is to install solar panels on the roofs of more than 10 percent of their stores.  The three Oregon REI’s with solar panels are all located within in the Portland Metro Area.  Portland Metro receives substantially less solar irradiation than Central Oregon so it simply makes sense that the Bend REI should be high on the list for solar panels for REI to reach their 10 percent goal.

The following article effectively highlights the influence very large utility companies can have on renewable energy projects and the need for predictable financial incentives that are sufficiently large enough and have a life long enough to allow projects to be planned and completed. 

# # #

Bend’s Big Solar Project Delayed, in Doubt
The Bulletin – James Sinks – August 5, 2008

A high-profile – and high-elevation – green energy project in downtown Bend may still be in trouble, despite a recent ruling by the Oregon Public Utility Commission that seemed to give the green light to privately financed solar projects on public property.

A 200-kilowatt solar energy array is supposed to be installed atop the city’s new downtown parking structure, where photovoltaic cells would perch on steel trellises above the top deck of cars.

Yet, because of the delay caused by the PUC case – which was launched by utility giant PacifiCorp, the parent company of Pacific Power – it is doubtful now that the project can be completed by December 31. That’s when a federal tax credit available for operational solar power projects is due to shrink from 30 percent of the installation cost to 10 percent.

And without that higher federal tax credit, the project doesn’t pencil out financially, said Doug Parsons, the chief executive of Bend-based SunEnergy Power Corp., which would install and own the solar array and then sell the electricity generated.

Even though the city of Bend helped to secure a $400,000 grant from Pacific Power to help pay for the parking garage project, there is no provision to force SunEnergy to actually build it, said Jeff Datwyler, the city’s downtown manager.

“It has always been at SunEnergy’s risk,” Datwyler said.

If installed, 60 percent of the power the solar array is expected to produce will be used for the parking garage.

The city would buy that electricity from SunEnergy – at a discount compared to regular power rates – and then would also get credits for the roughly 40 percent excess electricity that’s not needed from the solar array, and flows back onto the power grid, Datwyler said.

Similar projects in development across the state are teaming private investors and public entities, because private enterprise can benefit from tax credits that have been adopted to encourage renewable energy projects.

But executives at PacifiCorp, which is owned by Iowa-based MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co., raised questions about the legality of such deals, saying that small companies that are generating power and selling it from solar arrays should be treated as mini utilities.

PacifiCorp also questioned whether those companies should be able to take advantage of “net metering” and put power back onto the grid.

It took six weeks for the Public Utility Commission to evaluate that case and weigh testimony, in which only one of 18 entities that sent input agreed with the PacifiCorp position, said Jason Eisdorfer of the Citizens Utility Board of Oregon, and that was PacifiCorp.

The other public and private respondents said the public-private projects followed the state’s electric restructuring laws passed in 1999 and shouldn’t be in jeopardy. The commission agreed.

“After review, we find thses types of arrangements are consistent with existing laws and rules, but are also in keeping with the Legislature’s intent of encouraging development of renewable energy projects,” Commission Chairman Lee Beyer said in a release last week.

Eisdorfer said the decision won applause from consumer and renewable energy groups, and even Portland General Electric.

“It is good for customers to have options to generate electricity, good for the solar industry and this is a direction the industry was going, and it is good for the grid overall because it diversifies the system away from fossil fuels,” he said.

But eliminating regulatory uncertainty is only one hurdle to solar energy development.  It is not cheap, so tax credits and rebates have become an important tool to make projects viable, said Susanne Leta Liou, senior policy advocate with the Renewable Northwest Project in Portland.

And the reduction in the federal credits – a bid failed last week to keep the tax benefit at 30 percent – looms even larger now, she said.

“Developers are under the gun to get projects completed by the end of the year, and it didn’t help matters that there was a delay caused by the PUC filing,” she said.  She said she’s hopeful that the Bend garage project can get back on track.

So is SunEnergy CEO Parsons.  The company remains committed to the project, he said.

It can cost upward of $7 per watt to install a large solar array, according to industry sources, meaning the 200-kilowatt project at the Bend parking structure could cost $1.4 million or more.

And that’s where the tax credits come into the mix. Those can allow investors to recoup half – or more – of the cost of installing a project, Liou said.

While the Bend private project appears to be in limbo, the same isn’t true for a solar array that will be installed atop the new terminal at Redmond airport.

That’s because the airport has received a grant to pay for the units, and will own it, and the project will be installed by December 31, said Airport Manager Carrie Novick.

There are dozens of medical offices, urban business parking lots, health care providers and gas stations in Bend that could easily erect solar carports at their businesses.  And Bend has – or claims to have – much more sunshine than Eugene yet the “wet side” Willamette Valley town has at least five solar carport projects to none in Bend. 

# # #

Eugene parking lots get solar-power caps
By Diane Dietz – The Register-Guard - May 1, 2008

The solar energy explosion under way on business rooftops in Eugene is spilling out onto parking lots as firms erect free-standing solar carports to shield their employees and customers and give their companies extra electrical power.

Driven by generous incentives and tax credits, five solar carport projects sprang up in Eugene during the past few years. A medical office, an urban business parking lot, a health care provider and a gas station all have erected solar carports at their businesses.

The carports consist of photovoltaic arrays on slanted, rectangular roofs set on standard steel pillars. From six to 10 cars park between painted lines under each cover.

In California, banks of these free-standing solar carports cover open-air parking lots. They save energy by keeping cars cool — they need less air conditioning at midday to be bearable — and they generate energy to feed to the grid, or for other nearby purposes.

Parking lots are seen as “great potential real estate for solar,” said Rob Del Mar, renewable energy project coordinator for the Oregon Department of Energy. “We will see more and more covered (solar cell) parking.”

From Southern California to the Hudson Valley of New York, energy analysts are counting parking lots, totaling the acreage and estimated power that could be generated if all were covered by carports bearing photovoltaic systems. By some estimates, the country has 4.7 billion acres of parking lots — an embarrassment of asphalt riches.

Unlike the desert, where some visionaries plan vast arrays of solar cells, parking lots have the advantage of being next to a building that uses electricity or a transformer that can tie the juice it produces into the grid. “You’re talking hundreds of feet — and not miles — for your interconnection,” Del Mar said.

One other advantage: The lot-built systems won’t be in the way.

“If your roof is covered with solar cells, what are you going to do when it comes time to change your roof?” said Bill Welch, engineering supervisor for EWEB’s energy management program.

Eugene businessman Heinz Selig spent $240,000 this winter to put a six-vehicle carport on his property at 16th Avenue and Willamette Street, the site of Evergreen Nutrition and other businesses.

But the financial bite will actually be less than that in the end.

Oregon offers a 50 percent tax credit for systems, the federal government offers a 30 percent credit — and Selig signed a contract with EWEB to buy all the power his carport generates at a premium, which is 15 cents per kilowatt.

Selig is a bit of an evangelist when it comes to solar power. He has sent as many as 15 colleagues to Advanced Energy Systems to evaluate launching similar projects.

“If you owe taxes for the federal and state, it’s a no brainer,” Selig said. “I don’t know why everybody is not doing it.”

The Tamarack Wellness Center on Donald Street in south Eugene installed a solar carport over its 10-space employee parking lot two years ago. In the next seven years, Tamarack will have met the conditions of the incentives used to build the system and then the energy it generates will be free for the center’s use. The solar cells should last an additional 10 to 15 years, site manager Dave Mischak said.

“There’s not a lot of maintenance to this,” he said. “You basically rinse down the panels and make sure there’s not dust on them.”

Dr. Kraig Jacobson, who installed a solar carport at the Oak Street Medical building,said the firm chose to put an array of cells on the carport because it allowed a bigger system than if the installers had used the medical building’s roof.

The $156,000 system supplies 15 to 20 percent of the building’s electrical demands. The peak output is during the day, which is valuable because that’s also the period of peak demand on the grid.

Installing the solar energy system means that EWEB will have to rely less on coal-fired power plants to meet peak energy demands, Jacobson said.

He said it’s satisfying to watch the four meters, which indicate carbon dioxide equivalents, or offsets, produced by the cells.

At least every other week a college class, a Boy Scout troop or a curious engineer stops by to examine and to learn about the carbon-sparing system, he said.

The most public of all the solar carports in Eugene is the one over the pumps at Se­Quential Biofuels.

It features an innovative racking system designed by the Eugene-based Energy Design Company, which allows the photo voltaic cells themselves to form the roof of the structure. On some other carport systems, the cells are mounted on top of a roof.

That PV carport costs $10 per square foot, or about $170,000 for the usual size, and Energy Design’s model has the advantage of some transparency between cells.

“Sunlight filters through and illuminates the area underneath,” Vice President Eric Morrison said.

The company is building a 4,000-square-foot solar parking structure for a nursery in Cornelius.

Parking lots are “a perfect unused space with lots and lots of sun. We have so much potential here to create solar power for our communities,” Morrison said.

Most recently, a Eugene developer has included plans for a solar carport in a proposed Spaghetti Heaven restaurant project slated for the Whiteaker neighborhood.

Today’s solar carport owners said they have built their projects against a day when plug-in hybrid cars come on the market.

Then, drivers can juice up during the day by plugging into the solar-electricity-­generating carports. “It’s a nice kind of symbiosis that can be immediately recognized,” Del Mar said.

The plug-ins increase the hybrids’ efficiency, allowing the cars to get 100 miles per gallon, instead of the current 45 miles per gallon.

In a major step this week, the Massachusetts-based A123 company announced that it would begin selling conversion kits to allow Prius hybrids to plug into the electrical grid — although Toyota quickly announced that making the conversion may void thewarranty.

General Motors, meanwhile, is racing to be the first to get a plug-in hybrid to market with its Saturn Vue soon and its Chevy Volt by 2010. Toyota also said its Prius with plug-in capabilities will be ready for corporate buyers in 2010 and for consumers a couple years thereafter.

Heinz will be ready. His carport was wired in advance for plug-ins. He expects fully electric cars to be common within five years.

“This is a good thing,” he said. “I think everybody should do it.”