Solar Businesses Say Conference Reflects Sunny Future
Posted on: Friday, 9 May 2008, 12:00 CDT
By Chris Bagley, North County Times, Escondido, Calif.
May 8--SAN DIEGO -- A national conference on solar power drew unusually large numbers of contractors and business managers to town this week, reflecting a rapid increase in energy costs and changing government policies at the state and federal level.
About 5,000 people in the solar industry have turned out for the week-long gathering, including several who work in niches that didn't even exist a couple of years ago. A representative of the organizer, the American Solar Energy Society, said attendance was up 50 percent over last year's conference in Cleveland, making it probably the group's most heavily attended convention in a half-century. The conference began Saturday morning and wraps up Thursday afternoon.
California's environmental consciousness, its relatively strict standards for renewable fuels and relatively large tax incentives have made it something of a hub for the solar industry, though the conference also drew from locales as disparate as Stamford, Conn., and Tucson, Ariz.
Arpad Kovacs, whose Carlsbad-based company designs and installs solar-power systems throughout San Diego County, said he had dropped in several days this week and learned a lot from the widening range of participants and speakers.
Though solar power represents a small fraction of the work his Mr. Electric franchise does, he said he'd noticed growing interest for solar panels in the last year. He was overwhelmed when he set up a display booth at the Carlsbad Street Faire on Sunday, he said.
"I couldn't stop talking," Kovacs said. "The questions keep coming."
Like several others who spoke to the North County Times, Kovacs was attending the annual conference for the first time.
Lloyd Barr said he came to educate himself as he prepares to launch a new business in southwestern New Mexico, where he lives.
Barr produces electricity from solar panels at his home, then sells production credits to customers in states that are beginning to require a certain percentage of electricity to come from renewable sources, Barr said.
Most of the profit comes in the form of smaller power bills, but Barr's newer endeavor, Catrox Enterprises, buys the credits from other at-home producers and sells them at a profit to larger-scale buyers in the various states, he said.
Murrieta resident David Warren, who helps arrange loans for installations of solar electricity and heating systems, advises solar contractors to target smaller jobs that appeal to a broader range of clients. After all, Warren said, two or three kilowatts of solar generating capacity is usually enough to keep most households from having to buy electricity at the more expensive rates that can kick in toward the end of a billing cycle.
A larger-scale project can cost $60,000, an amount that most homeowners find daunting, even when financing spreads the cost over several years. A modestly sized project can cost $30,000, an amount that can go lower with the help of tax incentives. California, for example, recently renewed a system of rebates of about $2,500 per kilowatt of generating capacity. Depending on state incentives, local electricity rates and the interest rate used to finance an installation, homeowners can generally recoup their investment in five to 12 years, according to people in the industry.
"When the amount of financing is $20,000, that's palatable," Warren said.
Neal Lurie, a spokesman for the American Solar Energy Society, said the busier conference this year probably has to do with a variety of political and economic changes at the national level, including some that may come with a new presidential administration.
"The presidential candidates are all talking about 'green'-collar jobs now," Lurie said. "You didn't have $3.90-a-gallon gasoline last year. People are seeing dollar signs."
-----
To see more of the North County Times, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.nctimes.com.
Copyright (c) 2008, North County Times, Escondido, Calif.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
Source: North County Times
User Comments (0)
RSS Feeds