A Current Idea Could Lower Electricity Bills : Tests of new solar energy arrays could turn home rooftops into commercial power generating plants.
How would you like to make your electric meter run backward--especially during those peak times for heat and air conditioning? I’m talking about going beyond merely conserving energy--my usual topic in these columns--and finding yourself in the position that the utility might have to pay you.
A Camarillo firm, Siemens Solar Industries, has emerged as a major player in a revolutionary scenario--of which this backward-running meter is only one element. The plot involves turning your house into a dynamo producing electricity for you to sell to your local utility.
Siemens manufactures millions of little photovoltaic wafers that, when exposed to light, generate a bit of electricity. Local hardware stores already carry garden and yard lights powered this way. They soak up the sun during the day and illuminate the path to your door at night. But the wafers, or cells, as they are called, can also be laid on your roof almost like shingles and produce enough juice, and more, for all your household needs.
That’s the revolutionary thing. Nowadays, according to Siemens spokesman Mark Stimson, it’s become possible to get an arrangement of cells on your roof so powerful that there’s extra energy to sell back to the utility--using the same wires that have been bringing you electricity in the first place.
The utility that serves Ventura County, Southern California Edison, is using locally made cells to conduct tests on this two-way exchange. The tests are being conducted in the California desert.
The utility in our state capital, Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD), this year bedecked the roofs of a hundred private residences with Camarillo-made photovoltaic cells.
Last year a New England utility put similar cells on every house in a Gardner, Mass., subdivision.
Get the picture? Home sweet home--or a town full of homes--may eventually become the generator, using millions of roof cells. And the utility company transforms itself into an entrepreneur connecting each roof-mounted rig. Sort of like the telephone company connects us all. I mean there’s no central place generating phone calls, we do that.
Siemens isn’t the only manufacturer in the field, by the way, but it’s the largest in the world. So a lot of the new jobs this environmentally friendly, energy-conserving revolution is creating will be in Ventura County.
The reason this isn’t exactly sweeping the country yet is that prices are high, though they are expected to drop as manufacturing increases. Currently, rigs cost almost $30,000--a stiff price even if you may never have to pay an electric bill again.
SMUD is currently installing the rigs for free, retaining ownership and not paying homeowners for juice generated. It’s an experiment in seeing exactly which way the power flows at various times.
If Ventura County residents want to get a little revolutionary right away they can, for a few hundred dollars, light up at least their yards with solar-powered electricity. Some neat stuff is available at the hardware store.
You can even get a local contractor to put up a 10-foot by 10-foot roof rig for about $10,000. It will reduce the amount of electricity consumed throughout the house by a third.
But, currently, you can’t make a deal whereby your meter goes backward real fast. You have to sell to SCE at a wholesale rate and buy from them at retail.
Changes in this policy are being studied at SCE and SMUD. They’re both aware that getting you and me to generate electricity for them is already cheaper and less subject to fossil-fuel price inflation than new power plants and new power lines. They call this avoided costs. Of such things, these days, are revolutions made.
Richard Kahlenberg, who writes the weekly Earthwatch column, has been reporting on the environment since Earth Day I. Nowadays he recycles everything. You can write to him at 5200 Valentine Road, Suite 140, Ventura, 93003, or send faxes to 658-5576.
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* FYI: Solar electric-powered exterior lighting, trade-named PathMarker, PathwayLight and PrimeLight are available at local Ace, True Value, Home Depot and Target stores.
Ventura County homeowners interested in installing solar powered electrical systems can call their local electrical contractor or, for referrals, the California Solar Energy Industry Assn. (800) 225-7799, Southern California Edison--Lorne Schultz (800) 422-4950 or Siemens in Camarillo (800) 233-1106.
