Thursday, March 13, 2008

Solar City – 100 Solar Panels on 100 Homes in 100 Days

Flavs,

Sorry, I’ve been so quite, not like me, but I’ve been away from Park City for a while and I’m really happy to be back. I really like so many of the ideas, I didn’t want to even propose one, but here’s one that is in line with a bunch of the sustainability ideas.

I can’t claim this as my idea, because Alex (one of our flavs) and Mayor Dana (one of our favs) really came up with this idea, but I would like propose that we turn Park City into a Solar City by installing “100 solar panels on 100 homes in 100 days”.

Solar panels thrive in high altitude, cold weather, and sunny climates. Few people know that Park City is one of the premier solar locations in the US. A solar system installed here can overproduce by nearly 150% on peak days!

Solar Power (AKA Photovoltaic or PV) is a clean safe renewable maintenance free and inexpensive (yes, inexpensive) way to reduce electric power supplied by dirty polluting coal burning power plants.

Here’s a summary of the project plan, which can be greatly expanded, reduced, changed, improved, tweaked or anything, it’s just me mind spitting out ideas:

1. Gain Knowledge and Self Educate: Get a solar expert to educate us on grid tied solar systems, so we understand our product.

2. Lowest Cost (Bulk Purchase and Economy of Scale): Team up with a low priced reputable licensed and bonded solar design and installation subcontractor, a solar system supplier that can provide a discounted complete system (Solar Panels, Rack and Inverter Package) and Rocky Mountain Power (Net Metering Equipment) and come up with bulk discounted low priced cost including design and installation for 100 systems. I would estimate that we could get the complete cost to design, permit, purchase, and install a 1 kilowatt system for around $8,000. A one kilowatt solar system will power about a 1,000 square foot normal home.

3. Tax Credits, Incentives and Utility Offsets: Petition Park City municipal to offer and incentive of $2,000 for each home. Meet with Rocky Mountain Power and setup a special program to credit $2,000 ($2 per watt) for each home. Utilize the existing Federal (30% up to $2,000) and State (30% up to $2,000) tax credits. If we could receive all credits, incentives and offsets we could raise $8,000 for each home. When I said inexpensive before, how about if we could offer those solar systems for FREE???

4. Public Education, Awareness, and Advertising: We could do a public education, awareness and advertising campaign for the importance of utilizing renewable resources like solar and having the utility companies perform and energy audit of your homes. We could try to get as many applicants as possible.

5. Application and Home Selection Criteria & Selection: If we could offer the solar systems for free we might even get more than 100 applicants. The applicant would need to meet the solar installation criteria to ensure that the system would operate efficiently. Also, we could insist that all homes must go through an energy audit by Questar Gas and Rocky Mountain Power, and complete all recommended improvements prior to receiving the Park City Incentive and Rocky Mountain Power credit. If we improve the energy efficiency, a 1 kilowatt solar system can now maybe power a 2,000 square foot home.

6. Bulk Design and Permitting: We could submit all the systems design for permitting into one application to help lower the cost and expedite the review and approval process. We could involve the city chief building official in the process so that this would by a seamless process.

7. Delivery and Storage: The lead time on solar panels, rack and inverters can take some time, but we could order and store all materials until they have all arrived.

8. Installation: Send out the subcontract to install 100 solar systems on 100 homes in 100 days. Park City Muni would perform the inspections and Rocky Mountain power would change out the meters for net-metering.

9. Party: We have a huge party at the 100th house to celebrate our success.
There is one big bridge we need to burn and that is that most home owner associations in Park City either don’t allow or require architectural design approval of solar power systems. We would need to talk to the city’s attorney to find out how we could not allow HOA’s to stop roof mounted solar panel installation.
Can’t wait to see y’all soon.

Bo

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