FAYETTEVILLE — After losing power for 12 days during the January 2009 ice storm, Bill Connor and his wife, Faune, vowed never to rely on traditional electric service again.
The Fayetteville couple now has the largest residential rooftop solar-power array in the state, a bragging right confirmed by Arkansas Energy Office spokesman Scott Hardin.
“We didn’t plan on it being this big,” Connor said. “We started out with enough solar panels to get by. As the project progressed, we just kept adding.”
The 21-kilowatt installation was designed and installed last week by TremWel Energy, a Fayetteville-based renewableenergy and energy-efficiency development company, along with Rocky Grove Sun Co. and Besser Installations LLC, two other Northwest Arkansas energy companies.
“The typical residential solar installation is anywhere from 2 to 3 kilowatts, which usually doesn’t even cover an average household’s entire electric consumption,” said Stephan Pollard, chief executive officer of TremWel Energy. The Connors’ setup is nearly 10 times that size, he said.
The tilted, roof-mounted system not only supplies power to the Connors’ home, but also to a 48-volt, 4,600-pound battery backup system that has 64 usable kilowatt hours. The 1,800-square-foot installation took several months to set up and is expected to produce about 27,000 kilowatt hours of electricity a year, more than twice the average Arkansas household’s annual consumption. Excess energy generated by the system is sent back into the electric grid.
The Arkansas net-metering program is structured so that if a solar-powered home produces more power than it purchases from the electric company, the utility will allow the excess to work as a credit on the home’s next bill, said Peter Main, communications consultant with Southwestern Electric Power Co. Any credits not used at the end of a year expire.
The program is not structured to allow a homeowner to sell the energy back to the power company, officials said.
“The credit comes in the form of the retail price for electricity,” Pollard said. “It shows up on your bill the following month. Anything they’re not able to use after the year is up, you say goodbye to. But that probably won’t happen with about 99 percent of installations.”
Connor said the benefits of solar power versus gas-powered generators in the event of a long-term emergency made the choice clear for him. He and his wife rely on breathing machines to sleep and he uses an oxygen machine during the day.
Situated on a hillside in theHyland Park neighborhood off Crossover Road, the Connors’ home is ideally located for solar-power generation.
“It’s not for everyone,” Pollard said. “You really need a south-facing roof. Southeast or southwest is fine too. You basically want six hours of unimpeded sunlight on your roof.”
Jack Besser of Besser Installations LLC said the Connors are among a handful of homeowners in the area who have opted to convert to solar energy.
Pollard said he didn’t encounter any hurdles regarding city ordinances when installing the Connors’ solar array.
Since last year, buildingsafety officials in Fayetteville have been discussing which policies need to be changed to encourage alternative-energy systems and ensure their compatibility with the neighborhood, said Jeremy Pate, Fayetteville development services director. The regulations being considered for change are mostly related to wind turbines.
Solar-energy installers say the buzz around alternativeenergy systems is increasing.
“The market overall is definitely growing,” said Orlo Stitt of Stitt Energy Systems Inc. in Rogers. “We’re doing two or three [solar] systems a month.”
Federal and state tax credits and the general “sexiness” of alternative energy are fueling the conversion rush, Stitt said. Also, in many situations the price of the systems has come down slightly, he said.
Pollard said the price of solar panels in Arkansas has dropped nearly 30 percent over the last few years.
Homeowners who use solar energy receive a 30 percent federal tax credit along with stimulus money from the Arkansas Energy Office in the form of a renewable-energy technology rebate.
The Connors’ installation is expected to yield about $41,000 in rebate money from the Arkansas Renewable Technology Rebate Fund.
“By the time you figure out the tax credits, the rebates and match that up to what a goodsized natural gas generator would be, it’s a wash,” Pollard said. “You also get credit for the energy you don’t use so I believe you get dollar-for-dollar what you produce.”
The cost of converting to solar energy varies depending on the size of the system installed. The larger the system, the cheaper the cost per panel.
In Arkansas, the going rate is anywhere from $5.25 a watt to $6.50 a watt, Pollard said. A 3-kilowatt system that has a direct grid-tie configuration and no battery backup would average about $19,000, he said. One kilowatt is equal to 1,000 watts.
Though various factors affect the financial benefits, Pollard said the average solar customer won’t break even for about 10 years.
Arkansas, Pages 14 on 07/28/2010