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Tucson Watches California For Solar Plan Results

TUCSON, AZ - (AP) Count on Berkeley, CA, to bring solar power to the people with a plan to make 20-year funding available to folks who want to put solar panels on their roofs and pay for them in their property-tax bills.

The plan, approved by Berkeley’s City Council in November, gets around solar’s biggest stumbling block, which is not the Bay Area fog, but the high upfront cost of buying and installing photovoltaic systems.

Solar has been a hard sell hereabouts as well, even with sunnier skies, utility subsidies and federal tax available, because most Tucson residents can’t wrap their minds around paying for technology that won’t fully pay for itself through lowered electric bills for up to 20 years.

That’s why the city is looking closely at the Berkeley model and considering its adoption here.

The Berkeley plan would allow homeowners to pay the cost of installing photovoltaic panels on their roofs in yearly increments over 20 years - and to pass on that cost to the future owners of the homes along with the benefit of lowered electric bills.

Berkeley residents will recoup the cost of their systems in lowered electric bills within 12 years, estimates Cisco DeVries, chief of staff to Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates - sooner than that, if the cost of electricity rises faster than estimated.

In Tucson, the payback period for an average electric user is probably longer than that, said Katherine Kent, owner of the Solar Store. She estimates it is 15 to 20 years, depending on the size of the home, the system installed and the energy habits of the resident.

That estimate figures in subsidies available through electric rate payers of $2,000 for every thousand watts of generating capacity and $3,000 of federal and state tax credits for installing solar.

Erika Roush, of Technicians for Sustainability, a Tucson firm that specializes in solar systems and rainwater harvesting, said consumers should consider that they are “paying for a good 30 to 40 years of electricity” when they install solar.

The photovoltaic panels, guaranteed for 20 to 25 years, should have a life span longer than that, she said.

Roush said maintenance of a grid tied system, which doesn’t need battery storage, is minimal, though the inverters that change the panel’s DC current into AC will probably need replacement at least once.
The economics of solar will sweeten as energy costs rise.

In Berkeley, DeVries said, energy costs have risen an average of 6 percent a year for the past 30 years. The city is using a conservative 4 percent rise in its estimates of payback periods, he said.

Half of Berkeley’s electricity, supplied by Pacific Gas and Electric, comes from burning natural gas, DeVries said. The price of that fuel has been rising dramatically. The other half is a mix of nuclear and hydroelectric power.

Tucson Electric Power supplies Tucson’s energy mostly by burning coal, currently one of the cheapest methods of power production, at plants here and in Springerville.

“ It’s reasonable to assume, when looking at the cost effectiveness of solar-power systems, that the cost of power from your local utility is going to go up in the future,” he said.

DeVries suggested rates may rise dramatically for utilities using coal if the future brings carbon taxes and other costs for mitigation of greenhouse-gas emissions.

The higher the cost of electricity, the better solar looks, DeVries said.

The Tucson utility would welcome the program in its area, Salkowski said.

“ We’re certainly looking to get photovoltaic systems on rooftops, and anything that does that is a pretty good idea,” he said.

Arizona’s utilities have been ordered by the Arizona Corporation Commission to produce 15 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2025. The subsidies offered through Tucson Electric Power come from a tariff paid by all electrical users, currently capped at 35 cents per month. That amount would be boosted under proposals presented by the utility to the Corporation Commission.

The subsidies, coupled with a combined state and federal tax credit of $3,000, made solar a financially viable choice at his new house, said Tucson financial planner Chuck Dunn.

Dunn said he initially figured solar would give him a 3.5 percent return on his investment, which meant it would take nearly 30 years to recoup costs.

But that return doubled with enrollment in Tucson Electric Power’s SunShare program, which offset about half the costs of his 15,000-watt photovoltaic array, the biggest so far under the residential program.

The tax credits of $1,000 from the state and $2,000 from the federal government and the rising costs of energy will boost the return on his $42,000 investment even more, Dunn said.

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