It's a lot easier and less expensive to take your home solar than most people think. Thanks to generous financial incentives from the government and innovative alternatives to purchasing a system, homeowners are discovering there aren't really any risks remaining to going solar.

Like many things, home solar was first adopted by people who were concerned about their environmental and energy footprints. Now, others are following suit, primarily because it makes financial sense. Our electricity rates are going up: the price we pay for residential electricity rose on average 26.8 percent from 2002-2007 in the U.S. With home solar, you essentially lock in a low rate for all the electricity you'll consume in the future--for instance, think about how much you'd save if you could lock in your gasoline price at $1 per gallon for the next twenty years. Over time, going solar today will save you serious cash.

Here are five easy steps to get you started.

1. Figure out your home's solar potential

- If your electricity bill is higher than $100 on average per month, solar can save you money--depending on which purchasing option you choose and your prevailing utility rates, you could see savings of up to 60% within the first month of going solar.
- You'll need enough sunlight on your roof. Geography, roof orientation, and shading are all factors an expert can assess for you.

2. Research your options

There are a lot of resources on the web. States that offer incentives frequently have websites with good information, and many solar companies have good general information about going solar on their sites as well.

- Most people choose to work with a professional solar company to design and install a home solar system. You can get a good feel for a solar company from its website.

3. Decide what's best for your home and finances

Questions to ask include:

Q: Should I purchase a system outright or pay as I go? There are alternatives to buying a system all at once that dramatically reduce the upfront costs of home solar and still provide the long-term benefits, including power purchase agreement (PPA) or leasing options.

Q: What's the best return on my investment? Make sure to consider how your home solar solution will reduce your energy costs over time. Also, investigate how having home solar will factor in if you sell your house.

Q: Are maintenance and repairs included? Some companies take care of your system for you, others don't.

Q: Does my solar company have happy customers? Talk to everyone you can before choosing a solar solution and installer. Ask to speak with recent customers to make sure they're happy with their solar experience.

Q: How will the panels look on my house? Not all home solar installations are created equal when it comes to aesthetics. Choose the product you're most comfortable with.

4. Install your system

- A typical home solar installation will take only four to six days. There will be some additional delays before your system can be turned on after it's installed: your local utility company will need to come out to approve the system and properly connect it to the utility grid.

5. Enjoy your savings

- There's nothing quite like seeing your utility meter spin backwards because of solar. In order to make sure your system delivers all the electricity (and resulting savings) you expect, however, you need to monitor it. Some companies will do this for you, and with others you'll have to buy a separate monitoring solution.

I think the following statement from one of my company's customers sums it up:

"I can't complain. My utility bill dropped from $275 to $5.25 the first month I went solar."
--Harry, Fresno, California.

Source: Huffington Post
Written by Lynn Jurich, president and co-founder of SunRun.

Homeowners battling against soaring energy prices and a struggling economy have gained a powerful new tool to help harness free, renewable energy from the sun, the wind and other sustainable resources.

The U.S. House and Senate passed historic legislation that will massively increase the use of solar energy all across the America. Renewable energy provisions in H.R.1424 include an eight year extension of the 30% solar tax credit and removal of the monetary cap for residential solar electric installations. The legislation became active on January 1, 2009.

Click here to find frequently asked questions, the full text of H.R.1424. or see bill summary.

The solar provisions in this bipartisan legislation will help position the U.S. as a global leader in the booming solar marketplace, generating thousands of green-collar jobs, promoting energy independence, and helping to tackle climate change.

"Renewable energy and energy efficiency are our economic drivers,” said Brad Collins, Executive Director of the nonprofit American Solar Energy Society. “I applaud members of Congress for coming together to extend the renewable energy tax credits that will strengthen the new energy economy and generate green jobs at a time when they’re needed most.”

Key provisions of this legislation will:

* Extend the investment tax credit for residential and commercial solar installations for eight years (it was previously set to expire at the end of 2008)
* End the $2000 cap on the investment tax credit for residential solar electric installations placed into service after December 31, 2008
* Allows filers of the alternative minimum tax to claim solar investment tax credits
* Allows public utilities to claim the solar investment tax credits
* Authorize $800 million in new clean renewable energy bonds and creates a new category of tax credit bonds called Qualified Energy Conservation Bonds to finance state and local initiatives to reduce carbon emissions
* Extends deductions for energy efficient commercial buildings
* Establishing a new tax credit for purchasers of plug-in electric-drive vehicles
* Extends research and development tax credits

Kiva's is an established non-profit whose mission it is to connect people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty. Kiva is the world's first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend directly to unique entrepreneurs in the developing world. My wife and I absolutely love this organization and the good work they facilitate around the world. You can view our lender page here if you would like to. Also, there is a Give Green: Environmental Loans group which we joined up with too. Kinda fun to specifically invest in these types of eco ventures. It is easy for anyone to afford a loan with $25 minimum.

Green Fresno is an information portal about making Fresno "green". It is about natural resource conservation,renewable energy, walkable city design, growing more trees, sustainable living, and the many folks that support and debate these ideas.
www.GreenFresno.org

By Ken Martens Friesen

Want to make someone hate you really quickly? Tell them you wish gas prices would go back up, and you think we should ask our legislators for a $1.00/gallon consumption tax on gasoline. That should lose you a few friends. Yet this seemingly illogical proposal might make a lot of sense right now, as America tries to move rapidly towards energy independence and a fossil-fuel free future.

What is the logic of paying more for gas when we may be in the midst of a recession, and the only good thing on the horizon is the possibility of cheaper gas prices for months or years to come? With $4/gallon gas, consumers were starting to buy more fuel-efficient vehicles, driving fewer miles and generally becoming more energy conscious. The last time that happened was in the 1970s (1973 and 1979), when oil embargoes hit and we were faced with dramatically higher gas prices. Do you see the trend here? Oil prices up, we use less oil; oil prices down, we consume more oil.

The 1980s and 1990s, dominated by low energy prices, brought us to our current dependence on foreign fossil fuels and the rapid increase of carbon dioxide in our skies. In 1973 we imported 30 percent of our oil; by 2006 we imported 60 percent. Between 1985 and 2005 the average fuel economy of American cars and light trucks actually went down. Higher oil prices have been the most effective way of making our country increase energy efficiency and reduce reliance on foreign oil. It happened in the mid 1970s, and was beginning to happen over the last two years. It is likely that if cheap gas prices continue consumers will be lured again into buying larger vehicles and driving more.

Why a $1/gallon gas tax now? We need to make our economy more green, reduce global warming and become more efficient and competitive with Europe and Asia. The tax would fund clean alternatives to fossil fuels, especially wind and solar, plug-in hybrids, all-electric cars, light rail, high-speed rail and second generation bio-fuels that actually help the environment. Both presidential contenders were united on the need to move towards energy independence and tackle global warming. A gas tax would make certain this would happen in the most efficient manner possible. The money would go straight from being part of the problem to being part of the solution.

Why a $1/gallon gas tax now? We are very familiar with $4/gallon gas prices and it would be easier to live with higher prices now than having to try to adjust once again to high prices in the future. To have any chance of locking in the positive effects of high gas prices, we need to keep prices high enough for change to take effect. European countries tax gas at a much higher rate than in the U.S. Consequently, prices throughout most of Europe and Japan are nearly double those of the United States, and those countries, not surprisingly, are much more energy efficient, and are promoting alternative energy much more than the United States.

Why a $1/gallon gas tax now? With the economy hurting and job growth at a standstill, what the country desperately needs is an effective and environmentally responsible way to jumpstart the economy. The billions the $1/gallon gas tax would raise would go a long way towards starting new industries and getting the economy moving again.

Why a $1/gallon gas tax at all? No one likes more taxes. But a tax like this has a proven record: we often tax a perceived social problem and use the funds towards a solution. Taxes on cigarettes fund anti-smoking campaigns. Taxes on alcohol fund drunk-driving awareness campaigns. A tax on gas would work immediately towards ending two persistent problems related to fossil fuel consumption: global warming and dependence on foreign sources of energy. And the tax is equitably borne out: you pay based on how much you consume.

Will it be easy or popular? Of course not. But the best examples of America’s history are those where we see past our own selfish interests and strive for a greater good. In this case paying $1/gallon more in gas will help us, our children and many generations to come live lives less dependent on foreign sources of energy and more dependent on renewable energy. So go ahead and make your neighbor angry. Call for a gas tax now!

Ken Martens Friesen teaches political science and history at Fresno Pacific University. He drives a car that runs entirely on waste vegetable oil.

Check out the new eco-friendly community in North Fresno. Four years in development, a half-dozen founding families worked with architects to create a project that combines private townhomes with extensive common facilities. In order to live in a multi-generational environment that encourages co-operative living, they planned smaller living spaces (1,100 to 1900 sq ft) based on LEED standards. Common areas include a pool, children’s play areas, spa, gym, workshop, bike garage, guest quarters, common laundry and a kitchen / community dining hall where they share meals several times a week. They plan to grow a vegetable garden, too.

Homes are still available, but it’s worth a walk through, even if you aren’t in the market for a new home right now. We are planning to host Fresno Cohousing on the upcoming solar tour on April 18, 2009.
For more information, go to fresnocohousing.org

Over the past six months, oil prices have plunged more than 50 percent, renewable energy company asset values have taken an even bigger dive, and financial institutions have collapsed completely, leading to a worldwide credit crunch.

Is this really the best time for your company to be thinking about generating renewable energy onsite?

Before answering, consider these forecasts by the International Energy Administration (IEA) in its recent World Energy Outlook 2008:

-- Energy is going to get more expensive, with oil reaching $200 per barrel by 2030.
-- Carbon-intensive energy, which comprises well over half of the energy in the United States, is going to get much more expensive-in part due to a cap on carbon that could reach $180 per ton.
-- The price and supply of fossil fuels will continue to be volatile.

In that context, it's clear: Companies can't afford not to think about investing in renewable energy, especially those with high energy-to-raw-material cost ratios, such as firms in agriculture, food processing, metal refining, paper manufacturing, and chemicals.

What follows are five key reasons why you should consider generating renewable energy onsite to power up your business.

Renewable Energy is Beating the Grid

In some regions, the cost of generating onsite renewable energy is already beating electricity bought from the grid. This "grid parity" is currently happening in places like California, Hawaii and Japan, where electricity costs are high and renewable resources are abundant. By 2012, Australia and Italy will likely achieve grid parity, and by 2015 much more of the United States will as well.

Threatened Supply and Hungry Demand Build the Case for Self-Production

Oil production is expanding to regions with increasingly unstable governments and crippling poverty, such as Iran, Russia, and Qatar, which together hold 56 percent of known new oil reserves.

On the demand side, the world is hungrier than ever: Even with the extremely high per-capita oil needs of OECD countries, fully 80 percent of projected new demand is coming from China, India, and the Middle East, while 1.6 billion people around the world still go without any electricity. As for logistics, the bulk of oil moves through international waters where there is growing banditry, such as the $100 million oil tanker heist by Somali pirates that is still unresolved. The result: The fossil fuel supply chain poses tremendous uncertainty on both price and physical delivery.

Carbon Legislation is Pushing Up Costs

Carbon cap-and-trade regulations, in some form or another, are descending on economies around the world. Already underway for several years, the European Union Emission Trading Scheme charges European heavy emitters $21.39 for every ton of carbon above their cap. In October, the U.S. inaugurated its first cap-and-trade program, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), which regulates utilities in the Northeast with a cost of $3.07 per ton. Regulation is just around the corner for other parts of the U.S., as well as for China and Canada. The IEA, an energy policy advisor to 28 member countries, predicts that by 2030, the average carbon prices will climb to $90 or even $180 per ton.

In addition to cap-and-trade regulations, low-carbon product standards and border tax adjustments also will put pressure on supply chains and buyer demand. All this means that carbon-intensive energy is a growing liability, whether at your own operations, upstream with suppliers, or downstream with the use of the products you sell.

Incentives for Onsite Renewables Production are Rising

"Feed-in tariffs," which require utilities to connect small, onsite renewable projects to the grid and pay their generators for surplus energy generated, are gaining traction. Countries such as Germany and Spain have adopted such policies successfully, and others like the U.S. (in California) and China are in the midst of implementing and scaling them up.

Creative Finance Options Abound

There are numerous ways to gather the resources to make onsite projects happen. Thanks to the grid, energy service companies can provide some or all of the financing needed. The grid also enables creative partnerships. For example, in partnership with Xcel Energy, Colorado's Aspen Skiing Company recently financed $1.1 million for a 147-kilowatt solar energy array. Of the energy produced, a third goes to a local school, and two-thirds is sold back to the grid, with profits given to Aspen Skiing Company.

There is a good chance you will find financing for onsite renewable energy projects by exploring partnerships with foundations or exploring funding available in carbon markets for carbon-offsets projects.

With the energy crisis likely to outlast the current economic crisis, investing in onsite renewable energy generation can insulate your company from the shocks, scarcity, and rising prices of energy. And with recent political discussions about a "New Green Deal" and a climate change "Manhattan Project," it's even possible that governments will add to or reconfigure the $300 billion in energy subsidies around the world.

So, in response to the question we started with: Is this really the best time for your company to be thinking about generating renewable energy onsite?

Yes, now more than ever.

Source
Author, Ryan Schuchard
Ryan Schuchard is Business for Social Responsibility's environmental research and development associate.

The U.S. housing sector remains in deep recession. Consumer spending is down. Business investment remains lackluster, with industrial production indicators hitting new lows monthly. And lay-offs have hit alarming levels.

Against this backdrop it's understandable if one holds a not-so-optimistic view regarding the U.S. economy and the markets for early 2009: the economy's fundamentals are weak, and it's going to take a lot of stimulus, fiscal and otherwise, to turn them around.

Nevertheless, there are bright spots -- in this case literally, as well as macroeconomically -- regarding the U.S. economy of tomorrow.

This way to the future

One small, but significant data point: despite the plunge in oil prices to around $50 per barrel, demand for solar energy and solar panels remains strong. Demand for solar energy systems increased 45% in 2007 and is expected to register another impressive gain in 2008, The New York Times reported.

About 25,000-35,000 workers -- installers, manufacturers, distributors, project developers, and material suppliers -- are currently directly employed in the solar energy sector, which is expected to grow to more than 110,000 in 2016, according to Solar Energy Institute Association data, The Times reported.

And here's an equally important stat: the jobs pay between $15-30 per hour, with many solar companies offering health benefits, The Times reported.


'Scale it up, and good things result'

Economist David H. Wang said those who view the 110,000-solar-job projection as small are missing the point: those totals don't assume any money from the Obama Administration's upcoming fiscal stimulus package or its energy bill/program, which will likely follow it.

"Assume continued technology progress in solar cells. Now multiply that by efforts to increase renewable energy sources in public schools and buildings. Now add an enhanced, but not an unreasonable, federal tax credit. Bingo. I think you can see that goods things will begin to happen from a domestic jobs and a GDP standpoint," Wang said. "If we add wind, auto sector transformation, and electric grid improvements to the equation, I think you can see that renewable energy has the ability to be a major source of good-paying, domestic jobs, for decades. Scale it up, and good things result."

Wang said a key factor will be the role energy efficiency plays in the Obama Administration's infrastructure and energy bills. For example, if the new administration gives school/public building energy efficiency a low priority, the seed-money effect on the solar industry will be less. If it is given a high priority, "it will create a surge of players in the field increasing research efforts," which will speed solar tech advances, further lowing solar costs, "which will really drive increased solar use and installation."

Energy Policy/Economic Analysis: In the very near future, your son or daughter may be a solar product designer, engineer, or solar product installer. Or perhaps you will become one yourself, with additional training in a career shift. Add wind energy, a revamped auto sector, mass transit expansion, and export sales of the above technologies -- some may become the envy of the world -- and one can begin to see the beginnings of the U.S. economic recovery and sustainable growth.

Solar power is explored , as KVPR's Quality of Life moderator Terry Phillips welcomes guests in the studio and via phone. Franz Weinschenk is a teacher and writes a column about alternative energy issues. Erin Clark is Managing Director of Regrid Power, Tom Cotter is a Solar Consultant for Regrid Power, and Bruce Williford is a biology teacher at Fresno High School. Listeners learn about the Fresno Solar Tour coming up on April 18th, and talk with listeners about their experiences and ideas regarding solar power.

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KVPR's Quality of Life Show on Alternative Energy
Regrid Power

When it goes online in 2010, the hybrid plant will also be the second largest solar energy facility in the world, become the largest outside California and provide an estimated 75 megawatts of solar thermal capacity while directly displacing fossil fuel usage, the utility said.

The facility, called the Martin Next Generation Solar Energy Center, is being built at the utility's existing natural-gas/oil-fired 3,657-megawatt Martin power plant. The plant is near Indiantown in Martin County, roughly 100 miles north of Miami.

Once complete, the new facility will pair a solar-thermal field with a combined-cycle natural gas power plant. Together, they're expected to use less fossil fuel when the sun is out while helping to produce steam to generate electricity.

The solar portion of the combined facility is to feature some 180,000 collectors with mirrored surfaces spread over 500 acres. The technology works this way: The mirrors reflect the sun onto receivers to heat liquid creating steam that in turn produces electricity whenever the sun is shining.

The utility projects that the new facility will produce about 155,000 MWh of electricity a year — about enough to power almost 11,000 households in its service area. FPL also estimates that the facility will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2.75 million tons across a 30-year period.

The Martin project is the largest of three of the solar facilities the utility is building in the state. All told the facilities are expected to produce 110 megawatts of emissions-free energy when operational. The other Florida projects are at NASA's Kennedy Space Center and in Desoto County.

In addition to becoming the operator of the second largest solar plant in the world, the utility already lays claim to operating the world's largest solar-thermal plant: the 310-megawatt Solar Electric Generating System in the world in California's Mojave Desert.

The utility says its capacity to produce solar power coupled with its production of renewable energy from the wind make FPL the U.S. front-runner in the renewable energy field. The utility has 58 wind power projects in 16 states with a capacity of more than 5,800 megawatts of electricity.

In California on Monday, Southern California Edison celebrated the completion of the largest rooftop solar installation in its state. The solar power array of two square miles of panels are expected to produce 250 megawatts of peak capacity — enough power for 1,300 homes.

Just a week earlier, the Northern California Solar Energy Association released a report charting the growth of solar installations in the greater San Francisco Bay Area.

More than 60 percent of the country's solar installations are in the Golden State, and the number of the installations has grown 30 to 40 percent annually for the past several years, Molly Tirpak Sterkel of the California Public Utilities Commission said in her forward to the report, which is available here.