|
Solar
Energy
Solar
energy may not be the be all and end
all of electrical power generation
but it sure beats most of the
alternatives. It can be installed
almost anywhere has a low
maintenance cost and continues to
give back for years. Unlike coal,
oil, gas and nuclear power plants,
there is no pollution and has a very
small carbon footprint. It forces
one to ask why these panels are not
built into every roof in the
community. There is at least 1
proposal for integrating it into our
highways and local roads.
The
answer boils down to politics. In
the small community of Pemberton
Borough, the town at one time
generated and sold it's own
electricity. They now buy it
wholesale and distribute it to the
community using their own
infrastructure. The borough claims
to have about 700 customers, which
includes about 250 in the recently
developed Hearthstone at Woodfield,
an active adult community.
Residents pay between $0.178 and
$0.194 per kilowatt hour.
Last
October there was a push within the
state to put Solar Cells on as many
homes as possible. What are
SRECS? These are
Solar Renewable Energy Certificates,
each certificate reflecting 1,000
kwh generated by a system. The
program is the
New Jersey Renewable Energy
Manufacturing Incentive (REMI).
Once your system is registered and
tracking has started, the system
owner receives the incentive monthly
based on the number of Kilowatt
Hours generated during that period.
The larger the system, the larger
the monthly payment.
The
normal cost of an installation of
sufficient cells to provide 50% of
the average power usage is on the
order of $25,000. Through a program
being run by Trinity Solar and
SunRun the same installation could
be completed for approximately
$2200. Seem too good to be true?
Well it's not. There is a
conglomerate willing to fund the
installation of solar cells on
private residences. The owner of
the residence gets all the power
generated by the cells but is not
compensated for the power generated
or flowing back into the grid. The
investors register the systems and
collect the
SRECS. The installation
includes, monitoring, maintenance
and insurance for the installed
system so there is never a cost for
the home owner.
The
alternative is to install the system
outside of the investor group and
collect the SRECS as well as the
savings in power usage and credit
for the power going back into the
grid. The downside of this is a
very large price tag which may not
be feasible for those on fixed
incomes and not so much spare cash.
None the less it is a fantastic
investment with a return on
investment of under 5 years. The
period of saving in electricity
lasts forever. The income from
SRECS will last for the next 15
years while the program is in
effect. In this case your $25,000
investment returns better than
$75,000 over the following 15 years
and half of your electric bill is
never seen.
Regardless of which way you go, this
sounds like a really great deal.
For those of us with limited
resources, working with the
investors sounds like the thing to
do. And it is, except that we live
in Pemberton Borough which resells
electricity that it purchases at
wholesale. They are not happy about
the loss of revenue if people start
generating their own power and make
it difficult for you to connect into
the grid.
It's
difficult but not impossible as long
as you purchase the system
outright. The town requires that
two meters be installed, one to
measure your power consumption from
the grid and one to measure the
power you contribute to the grid.
They have a monthly service charge
which is applied to the bill which
you pay regardless of how much you
use from or contribute to the grid.
The
borough also requires an escrow of
$3500 as part of the permitting
process to cover the cost of
reviewing the design and to cover
any damage to their equipment the
may be incurred when the system is
installed. Note that their fee is
greater than the total installation
fee when working with the investor
group. They claim that very little
of that should be used and that the
home owner should get it back. What
they don't tell you is when. As it
turns out if you cancel the
application as I did, they keep the
money for an additional month until
the next scheduled meeting where the
return of the funds can be approved.
The
borough, however, would not
cooperate with the investor group
who required networked meters to
monitor the system. The networked
meters provide much more information
about the system performance than
does the simple two meter approach.
Because the borough refused to
interface with these meters the
investor group would not do business
with anyone living in the borough.
Our
neighbors in the Township are having
an equally difficult time putting an
array along North Pemberton Road in
farm fields. Roadblock after
Roadblock has been erected, keeping
their project from moving forward.
If we truly want to stimulate the
economy, create jobs and build for
the future, we would make solar much
easier to install. They are far
less intrusive on our environment
than are other projects like
windmils.
The
bi-laws at Hearthstone at Woodfield
currently prohibit the installation
of solar panels. However due to the
legislation that was completed
several years ago, now association
can prohibit the installation of
solar panels
|
