A Veteran Builder Finds Something New Under the Sun Rebates and planning simplified a first installation of solar panels

Developer Duane Urquhart was intent on developing a community of environmentally sensitive, superbly crafted homes. He chose Bruce Wolfe, an industry veteran with 37 years of home-building experience in Southern California, to be his project manager. Working with an energy consultant, Wolfe installed photovoltaic (PV) solar electric systems to help meet Urquhart's environmental goals for Peppertree. WillowCreek was Wolfe's first experience with solar technology. Here is the account of his experience with the project: Our goal was to build a community of homes with a commitment to the environment that provided value for our customers. Solar technology has a lot of pizzazz with customers. Our houses are selling well, and PV systems are part of an environmental package that I think is responsible for our success. Home buyers have been very excited about the overall package that includes a wide range of energy-saving features. Our sales are brisk at a time when other builders are experiencing a cooling in the market. If you put yourself in the homeowner's shoes and think about the fact that you are producing electricity when you are not home and then using it when you get home, that's pretty cool. It's a big money saver. We estimated that the solar panels could provide up to 60 percent of power requirements for these homes. As it turns out, our homeowners have been happily surprised at their $50 utility bills. These same homeowners were accustomed to paying bills in excess of $200 a month and welcome the savings. On our model homes, the utility bills have actually been less than half of what we expected they would be. Based on the decision to build environmentally friendly homes, our energy consultant, ConSol, suggested installing solar panels, improving the building envelope and using efficient home products. My main role was managing the installation and complying with the rules and procedures set forth by the utility company. Since the PV systems are interconnected with the utility grid, it takes a lot of coordination with the utility company. A substantial amount of paperwork is required from the very beginning of the project until the time you hand the keys over to the homeowner. At first, the cost of the system and the complexity of the utility's paperwork was difficult to justify, but we got multiple rebates and lots of assistance from the local utility. Due to the uniqueness of the project and our participation in Energy Star, Zero-Energy Homes and ComfortWise, we experienced a number of advantages during the construction process. The first was receiving discounts on the county plan check and permit fees to the tune of 7.5 percent. Second, our plan check process was expedited, which allowed us to begin construction sooner. Lastly, our contract with the PV supplier was based on their handling the California State rebate processing. So even though each PV system cost roughly $18,000, the State rebate was approximately $9,000. ConSol is also looking into whether we can receive federal incentives based on the recent energy legislation. We were also very fortunate that our local utility had people focused solely on solar technology and were able to help us comply with regulatory mandates. The utility's solar specialist has been my hero, having guided me through the paperwork required to complete the regulatory process. The utilities' requirements can be intimidating at first, but our utility contacts were extremely friendly and very patient. They really helped speed the process, and I'm not sure we could have done it without them. The utility process didn't hold us up at all. It simply required an extra area of focus. The county building inspectors were not too familiar with solar technology and asked a lot of questions. However, their inquiries were based on wanting to learn more about PVs, since they see solar as an up-and-coming technology. Overall, they were supportive and interested in gaining experience with the technology.   1 | 2  NEXT