And it is making more sense with each passing headline about oil prices.
Kirk Maust, COO and chief engineer of Solar Direct in Bradenton, says photovoltaic panels are selling well, despite the performance of the real estate market the past couple of years. I interviewed Maust on Tuesday in Englewood, at the opening of two green model homes — one of them equipped with photovoltaic panels — in Beechwood Builders’ Heritage Creek subdivision. The models are featured in today’s Home & Real Estate section.
“We’ve seen a real escalation in sales the past year and a half,” said Maust, who oversaw the installation of a 2.8-kilowatt solar system on the roof of one of the models. “People see the cost of natural gas and propane has come up to as much as the cost of electricity, which is rising fairly rapidly right now. Last spring, we saw a dip in sales because of the overall economy slowing, but incentive-wise, and because of the cost of energy going up, there is a lot of buzz around these products.
“So we have been able to stay even keel or a slight loss. The pain threshold is a big thing for people — they feel it at the pump, they feel it in electric bills, so it starts to make a lot more sense.”
Maust said a 5-kilowatt system will cost $45,000, but with a $2,000 federal tax credit and a $20,000 rebate from the state of Florida, the cost drops to $23,000, resulting in a payback of 10 to 12 years “on an average system.” That means that the cost of the equipment and installation will be offset by lower electric bills within 120 to 144 months.
With the advent of net metering, which means the power company has to buy surplus electricity generated by a homeowner’s PV system, the payback period is much shorter, said Mike Evans of Eco-$mart Inc. “Net metering is in place from the governor … it should be official in August or September,” Evans said.
Maust said the 2.8-kW system on the Beechwood model will meet the house’s electricity needs except for the air conditioner and hot water, which is heated by solar power in a separate system.
“If you want to drive your whole entire electric bill,” the array of PV panels “would probably fill up most of your whole roof,” Maust said. “We’re doing systems of 5 to 10 kilowatts for people who really want to maximize results. But most of the rebates and incentives cap off at 5 kW. The public tends to stop where the incentives stop.”
The Beechwood model does not have storage batteries, which can cost $10,000, so in the event of a hurricane-caused power failure, it would not have full power.
“Almost all of the systems we are doing are grid-interconnects — the (Florida Power & Light power) grid is actually a big, giant battery, so when you are making power, if you are using it, you consume it, and if you are not using it, you sell it back to the utility. When you are not making power (at night or on cloudy days), you use their utility power to operate the house,” said Maust.
The effect of PV systems on electric bills is dramatic.
“We’ve done a house for a lady in Lehigh Acres who has a $15 electric bill now because she bought a 5-kW system,” Maust said. “She’s done other (green) things. Most of the people who jump onto this also see the need to be conservative in other areas, so they will do other things to help reduce the load on the house before they actually generate the power.”
One of Maust’s customers in Orlando saw his $450 electric bill reduced to $150. “He did more than just solar electric, though. One of the primary things anyone should do is go solar hot water first. It’s got the best payback and is the most sensible thing to do, and water heating is usually 30 percent of most people’s electric bills.” The typical solar water heating system costs $5,000, and the payback is four to five years, Maust said.
Of course, the payback is faster in sunny locales.
“We are named the Sunshine State,” Maust said, “but Arizona and Southern California outperform us in total energy per year. But obviously we’ve got plenty of energy hitting every square foot. Definitely if it were all captured …
“We have 5.5 hours of solar, what is called the solar window, and places like California and Arizona would have 6 and a half, approaching 7, hours a day.”
Home builders, Maust said, are getting the PV message: “Up until a few years ago, they were a real hard nut to crack, but now more and more are jumping into the green philosophy, probably more from the marketing aspect because they see that the public now wants it. Prior to this it was something they didn’t want to talk about; it was something above the norm that would just add to their headaches.”

~Original Article Publish May 31, 2008 Sarasota Herald Tribune

Recently, Up to 3 million people were affected by power outages across the state of Florida.

Investigators are still looking into what happened but it appears to short-circuit that caused a fire which interfered with 2 power distribution lines.

In an interview with the Sarasota Herald Tribune, a Solution Specialists for SolarDirect, Rex James, (Who was mis-quoted as being a Panel-Installer), said the outage is clear evidence that more residents need to get off the grid.

“It’s unreliable,” James said. “With solar you’re on an island, safe from the power outage.”

This is more and more true everyday. As the world expands our power grids struggle to keep up with the pace. Solar PV isn’t yet a realistic option for everyone but it’s becoming available to more and more people every day through these rebates, tax credits, incentives, net metering Renewable portfolio standards, evolving technologies etc. etc.

In the not-to-distant Solar looks bright, and that’s good for the planet, for us, and for our own futures. This black out comes as a serious reminder to those living in Florida with the constant threat of tropical activity potentially wreaking havoc on our power systems, Energy Independence is worth its weight in gol..err Silicon.

You can find Rex Jame’s Original (And much more informative) Letter here.