Publication Date: Friday, July 23, 2004

Solar saves money, environment

Angered by the power brownouts of 2000 and convinced the energy companies were responsible for manipulating them and the rising costs of her electric bills, Ruth Elder took action to make her Danbury Park home energy independent.

She and her husband Ernest Appelhans met with solar power providers and chose T&T Solar in Dublin to retrofit their two-story home for solar. At a cost of $60,000, T&T installed roof panels on the front and back of the house, three new solar meters in the garage and a large cabinet packed with $15,000 worth of special solar-rechargeable batteries to use when the sun goes down or the days become too cloudy.

"I used to watch our electric meter zip along and the bills come in," Elder said. "Now I see it running backwards during the day and I know PG&E isn't getting anything from us for that. It just warms by cockles."

The couple has received $30,000 in state and federal rebates and tax credits by installing the whole-house solar system. It also is expected to add value to the house so that they will recoup the rest of their investment, and then some, if they ever sell.

In the meantime, they have cut their PG&E bill in half. They could zero it out, Appelhans said, but that would require using the batteries at night. Since that would wear them out faster and because of the high cost of replacement, they revert to the grid and PG&E-supplied power at night.

A new meter, which they plan to install, will actually bill back what their solar generators are sending back to the grid during the day, with the expectation they could end up with no electric bill at all, or even a credit from the utility.

Although not an active environmentalist, Elder said her decision to install solar also stemmed from a strong belief that individuals should be more active in supporting environmental causes.

"Here we are in the sunniest part of the sunniest state, and it makes no sense not to use solar power," Elder said. "Why are we being held hostage by the big energy companies? California definitely should be totally energy independent."

Elder said the T&T solar system kicks in when the sun hits the roof panels and then switches back to the PG&E grid in early to late evening, depending on the time of year.

"It's a completely seamless change," she said. "You'd have to be watching carefully to see a light bulb even flicker. There's no affect on the computer at all."

She also does her laundry and other activities that require heavy electrical use during the day when her power is coming from the sun. Only a few lights and a television set draw power from the grid at night, leaving Elder and her husband with a May PG&E statement for $9.96. Because they have a solar system, PG&E computes their total bill on an annual basis, sending four-to-six pages of ongoing results and graphs each month through the November annual report.

"This graph showed that we used 900 kilowatt hours in January, compared to 100 in June, which shows the difference in the amount of sunlight our solar panels collect each month," Appelhans said.

Elder said she received a permit from the city of Pleasanton and the Danbury Park Homeowners Association, which approved the design of the roof panels, although a state law allows anyone to install solar power systems. Theirs is not as efficient as possible because the bright blue panels that would collect the most sun for the longest period of time would have been too bright and visible on her home roof. Also, city regulations barred her from pitching the collector panels steeply to catch more sunlight.

"Even though we're glad to be saving on our PG&E bill, we really did this to be free of all of the energy manipulations that were going on at the time and are still going on," Elder said. "We're just one household that's gone solar that's saving tons and tons of pollution from going into the air. Others should do the same."