Green Project Hoping Solar Panels Will Result in Significant Savings

New Orleans-Based Green Project Hoping Solar Panels Will Result in Significant Savings

Oct 25 - New Orleans CityBusiness

The Green Project is taking a step toward living up to its name.

The organization, which recycles and resells building materials salvaged from blighted housing demolitions, is installing a $35,000 solar panel array at the organization's facility on the corner of Press and Marais streets. The system should be operative by the beginning of November.

We expect it's going to replace 20 (percent) to 25 percent of our current usage, said Mark Juedeman, Green Project board member and a project organizer. We will probably save about $100 per month on our electric bill.

The amount of power generated by the solar array won't allow the Green Project to disconnect completely from the power grid. So it will be an experiment in net metering, the use of a bidirectional electric meter.

The Green Project will still draw electricity from the grid to supplement the solar panels, causing the facility's electric meter to spin forward. The meter will actually spin backward when the panels are generating more electricity than the facility needs. The Green Project's electric bill will be based on the net meter reading.

The Green Project is installing a photovoltaic system that uses panels coated with a material, usually silicon, which produce electricity when exposed to sunlight. Devices attached to the panels called inverters will convert the direct-current electricity to the alternating-current electricity commonly used in homes and businesses. The Green Project's system will generate 6 kilowatts of peak power or about a fourth of the facility's usage.

The Green Project is funding the solar project with a $25,000 grant from Houston-based Shell Exploration and Production and a $10,000 grant from Entergy. Amsterdam-based Shell Solar provided the solar panels at a substantial discount, Juedeman said. Shell Exploration and Production and Shell Solar are divisions of The Hague, the Netherlands-based Royal Dutch Shell.

I work for Shell so I was a logical person to talk to them, Juedeman said. However, Shell has been supportive of the Green Project for a number of years, even before I started volunteering here and this was a continuation of its support.

Entergy's grant was one of about 20 Environmental Stewardship grants the company awarded last year, said Patty Riddlebarger, Entergy's director of corporate contributions. In 2003, Entergy awarded grants totaling $150,000 to organizations in seven states, she said.

In 2003, the Louisiana Renewable Energy Development Act instructed the Louisiana Public Service Commission to develop rules to implement net metering. Under the act, projects using renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, hydroelectric or biomass can use a bidirectional meter.

Baton Rouge-based Louisiana Home Power, founded in 2003, is installing the Green Project's solar system. Louisiana Home Power has already installed several solar arrays, including one in West Africa to power a research laboratory for Tulane University.

However, solar power technology is still a long way from replacing oil and natural gas as fuel sources. While advances to solar power technology have improved the efficiency of solar panels, the technology is not yet cost-effective.

The problem with south Louisiana is air conditioning, said Louisiana Home Power founder Jeff Shaw. You wouldn't be able to run an air conditioner on solar power but everything else you could probably do for the price of a car or about $20,000 to $25,0000.