Dec 30 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - David Brooks The Telegraph, Nashua, N.H.


More than half a megawatt of solar and wind power could be generated at homes throughout New Hampshire due to a rebate program designed to spread alternative energy.

Since July 1, the state has received 229 applications from households for the rebates, totalling about $1.2 million. Most of them -- 194 -- were for solar panels, and the rest were for small-scale wind turbines.

"We anticipate that through the end of our first year of operation we'll be able to meet all of the demand for residential application," said Jack Ruderman, director of the state's Sustainable Energy Division. "If you're a homeowner and you want to get a system, you're in great shape. After July (of 2010, when the program must be renewed), it's harder to predict."

The total installed capacity of the applications is 641 kilowatts, or more than half a megawatt.

This is tiny by utility standards: A small power plant has a capacity of 15 megawatts, or 23 times the total of all these applications, while a big one like Public Service of New Hampshire's Merrimack Valley plant in Bow can generate almost 800 times as much electricity.

On the other hand, it is a huge expansion of the amount of the state's "distributed power," a term for electricity generated at the site it is used rather than by large, centralized power plants. Aside from the pollution benefits of coming from solar or wind power rather than burning fossil fuels, this electricity can reduce the need to build more power lines to carry power from power plants.

These are different from large-scale alternative energy programs like the 25-megawatt Lempster Mountain wind farm or the 51-kilowatt solar array that PSNH placed on its Manchester headquarters.

In the Nashua region, 15 applications had been turned in by mid-December, totalling 44 kilowatts; all but one are for solar panels. They are requesting $73,000 in rebates, roughly one-fifth of the total $378,000 cost of the projects.

Requests for applications came in from all over the state -- from Nashua to Newfields, Lyndeborough to Laconia, Pelham to Portsmouth.

Facilities ranged in cost from $3,600 (a tiny, 960-watt solar system in Gorham) to $52,422 (a wind tower in Orange).

Most applicants will receive the maximum rebate of $6,000, although no rebate could be more than half the installed cost.

Money for the rebates comes from the state's renewable portfolio standard, which gets money from the state's utilities, mostly through what are called alternative compliance payments.

The total amount collected is about $4.5 million, so there's more than enough to cover all home rebates, Ruderman said.

That money also will be used for future commercial rebate programs, which are going to be far more expensive, and perhaps even projects contracted out by the Sustainable Energy Division.

This program is separate from money collected by the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a unique cap-and-trade system in which utilities and others bid at auction for the right to release carbon dioxide.

The latest quarterly auction of carbon dioxide allowances held by RGGI saw prices continuing to fall, as a recession-driven lack of electricity demand reduces the need for them.

New Hampshire has announced plans to spend about $9 million of the money collected from RGGI, most of it to pay for home-weatherization programs.

RGGI involves 10 Northeastern states. The four quarterly auctions have collected $494 million total so far for all states, but the price collected at each auction has fallen and in December was almost at the statutory minimum of $1.80 per ton of CO2 released.

The Obama administration has expressed interest in developing a cap-and-trade program for greenhouse gases over the entire country. Europe has had a similar program for several years, although RGGI is stricter in many ways.

(c) 2009, McClatchy-Tribune Information Services