Aug 17 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Maria Garriga New Haven Register, Conn.

Someday soon, Joseph Mercer and his wife, Malinda Henen, will stand outside and watch their electricity meter spin backward.

It will be a very happy occasion, because that will be the day their United Illuminating bill will begin to drop, and possibly the day the power company will be paying them for electricity.

It's all because the Westville couple decided to be among the first wave of state residents to install solar panels on top of their house.

Seeking relief from the state's electricity rates, among the highest in the nation, Mercer, a retired phone company employee, and Henen, a clinical psychologist, had a small photovoltaic system installed on their roof earlier this month by Sunlight Solar. The system went live Friday, when the United Illuminating Co. installed the meters.

On summer days with long hours of sunshine, the system can generate enough power for the entire house and deliver any extra back to the power grid.

Utility companies buy the power from these residential systems at market rate and use the power to help meet the summer peak demand, largely driven by air conditioners. As power flows back from the house to the grid, the utility meter spins backward, and the customer's bill goes down or even reflects a credit.

The credits can help reduce the cost of higher use of grid electricity during cloudy winter months.

It takes about 10 years for the system to pay for itself, but over the system's expected life, the system generates huge savings.

"I thought this would reduce our carbon footprint, but we did this primarily because of the electric rates. When you add the distribution and generation fees it comes out to 24 and a half cents a kilowatt hour," Mercer said. "But solar is not a quick payback as in one or two years. It will take at least 10 years."

For environmentalists, penny pinchers, technophiles and regular utility customers, solar is a light at the end of the tunnel of the energy crisis. It's the nearly 14 million kilowatt hours of light produced by the solar energy systems throughout the state, enough to power 1,625 homes.

Since the state in 2004 approved a rebate program that can effectively halve the cost of a solar energy system, the in-state solar industry has exploded. The rebate can pay for up to $45,000 on a residential system. For home owners with average electricity bills, the rebate means a typical $30,000 system will cost $15,000.

The industry estimates that a photovoltaic (PV for short) system can add about 10 percent to a home's value because of the lower electric bills.

Clean energy advocates love solar because it's a source of limitless energy and produces no pollution.

With the state rebate, the PV systems pay for themselves over 10 to 20 years by producing electricity, in effect as a personal generator. Since they have a lifespan of 30 to 40 years, anything after the payoff becomes pure savings, except for the monthly fee to stay connected to the utility grid (to produce power during cloudy days).

Customers calling for the solar systems have wildly different motives and needs.

Residents squeezed by electricity rates have flooded installers with calls. One had a monthly bill of $2,500 for two homes on his lavish estate.

"Either they want to be the cool kid on the block or they want to save the environment or they want to save money or they hate the utility company," said Diana Bercury, marketing director for Sunlight Solar in Milford, an Oregon-based company that has installed 232 PV systems in Connecticut.

Akeena Energy, another national company, just opened a 10th branch in Milford, but installers seem glad to have more help to meet pent-up demand.

"We can't immediately put solar panels on your house. We've hired installer on top of installer. We're doing the best we can. Right now, if you sign up for panels today you can get the panels in October," Bercury said.

Sunlight Solar's biggest job in Connecticut will be the North Haven Health and Racquet Club, which has a PV system in design now. The health club's PV system will have 623 panels that produce 190 kilowatt hours of electricity.

Yet most businesses are just starting to go solar.

Installers have been so busy putting in panels at businesses and homes that they have been competing for employees, not contracts. They also give each other referrals to reduce the wait time.

A number of companies offer financing for PV systems and now the state is touting its own solar leasing program for as little as $120 a month over 15 years.

The changes have made solar energy a viable power source for many more people, and the burgeoning demanding is generating the critical mass that will make solar panels cost less, which may drive up demand even more.

Many environmentalists have touted solar as a way for the United States to declare energy independence from volatile oil markets. Yet lean solar energy still contributes just one-tenth of one percent of the electricity used in this country.

That could change rapidly in Connecticut. Since, 2005, the rebate program has helped pay for 429 systems installed as of June 30. An additional 157 in the design stages have been approved for the rebate.

Together, these 586 systems will generate 3.33 million kilowatt hours of electricity, enough to power 397 homes. (The average home uses 700 kilowatt hours of power a month.)

This is just on the residential side.

On the commercial side, installers have completed 38 solar installations and are designing an additional 44 for businesses that applied for and received grants from the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund.

The fund, part of Connecticut Innovations, a quasi-state agency that promotes new technology, uses money collected by utility companies from ratepayers to provide incentives for clean energy alternatives such as solar, wind, and fuel cells, and expects the 82 projects will generate 10,289,140 kilowatt hours, enough to power 1,225 homes.

The systems use photovoltaic panels (glass coated with silicone) to generate a kind of electricity through energy released by chemical reactions in the panel coating. That energy travels to an converter that turns it into the kind of electricity that powers homes.

In Connecticut, solar systems can be connected to the electric grid. On cloudy days a home connected to the PV system can supplement by taking power from the grid. On sunny days, when the system delivers more power than needed by the home, the system sends the excess energy back to the grid.

The state requires the utility company to pay market price for any of the electricity fed back into the grid by these PV systems.

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