Granite Staters Are Tapping Into The Sun's Power

Carolyn Demorest describes herself as an granola.
She works for the New Hampshire Sustainable Energy Association, lives on a mountain in Dublin.
Her house is 30 years old, two stories and well-insulated and in the backyard sits a 2-point-4 kilowatt array of solar panels.
105 12:25 “they’re right outside my kitchen window and everytime I wash my dishes I love looking at them 12:30 they’re beautiful”
And expensive, when she bought them ten years ago.
“it cost about 20-thousand dollars for the array and then I also wanted to have battery backup which is not as common,and that probably added another 8 thousand or so”
The state and federal government offered no incentives or tax rebates for the purchase back then.
In 1999, when she first bought them, she cut her electric bill by about 40-percent.
But Demorest says, her purchase wasn’t about economics.
104 “3:11 I was thrilled at the idea of being able to make some of my own electricity because it would mean that I wouldn’t be using electricity that was generated by nuclear power or fossil fuels, and I had just become a great believer in solar energy 3:27”
(nat sound) 107 :20
Demorest walks outside on this rainy day to show me her electricity meter
108 :15 “see, its going backwards, barely but even on a grey day.”
Demorest was one of the first people in the state to net –meter her excess solar power with her utility.
108 110 “If it was going forward I would be buying from them, but now I’m selling to them…the panels are making electricity or it wouldn’t be going backwards.”
Back when Demorest bought her panels, the state had very few solar panel installers.
But that picture has changed.
100 (Natsound)
Brad Allen walks up a ladder to his rooftop in Center Harbor.
“101 :57 we have 16 panels, and they’re 220 volt panels (sound under)
Allen, a business professor at Plymouth State, put a 3.5 kilowatt solar electric system on his roof about nine months ago.
“101 1:43 we didn’t want a big obtrusive rack system to make them standout there, they’re almost flush to the roof, and they work great.”
Allen owns a big home on a golf course, has a family of four, and admits to using lots of electricity.
He says he’s wanted solar panels for years but waited.
“94 2:47 I intentionally held off on mine until the incentives were in place.”
With a federal tax rebate, and incentives from both his utility and the state, he says the timing was perfect.
“95 :28 when you put all three of those together and with a system that meets all those criteria, I was able to get half of my 26-thousand dollar investment back in the first year.”
His system produces more energy than Demorest’s, and he’ll end up paying much less.
Allen says the panels are sturdier than people think…golf balls, hail, and snow haven’t stopped them from working.
93 2:45 “fabulous, absolutely zero maintenance, exactly as advertised, no aesthetic issues, no maintenance issues, no surprises.”
Mark Weissflog owns clean energy company KW Management in Nashua.
He says these days solar panels are now smaller, produce more energy, and need less space.
And while the cost per watt for solar hasn’t changed dramatically over the years, interest has in solar power has.
116 7:50 “12 years ago we might have gotten one call a month, now we’re getting a lot of calls, we’ve probably quoted more jobs in the first four months of this year than we did last year.”
Weissflog says solar power still has a couple of drawbacks.
There’s no cheap way to store the power generated.
And right now the cost of materials and installation are beyond a lot of people’s budgets.
But those costs are dropping.
“the modules have come down just the way they’re installed is a lot more efficient, the products that are available today, we’re seeing ourselves cutting our labor installation in half, the electricians we use are spending half the time on the roof.
Weisflogg and other solar energy enthusiasts don’t see solar as the solution to New Hampshire’s energy problems, but do see it as a very important part.
For NHPR news, I’m Amy Quinton.