On Wednesday, Hunter Swanson’s home in Bayfield seemed less like a beacon of solar energy than a house bravely withstanding arctic temperatures.
But all that will change this week, once Shaw Solar, a contractor, finishes installing 16 solar panels on Swanson’s roof as part of Solarize La Plata, a new program that uses discounts to encourage homeowners and small businesses to convert to solar energy.
As contractors nimbly moved atop the Swanson’s roof, Robert Lea, chairman of Solarize La Plata, said the program began as a citizens’ initiative last March. Since the initiative went public in October, more than 300 households and businesses have signed up, he said.
Swanson’s is the first actual house to have the solar panels installed through the program, and Lea said the crew was so excited, only a full-blown blizzard would have deterred them.
“It’s always about the weather. We have a goal of installing 100 houses by June,” he said.
Lea is understandably delighted by Solarize La Plata’s progress.
After eagerly introducing a reporter to Solarize La Plata Vice Chairman Byron Kellog, he said most solar energy projects get off the ground 13 months after people initially sign up – an eternity compared with Solarize La Plata’s two-month turnaround, he said.
The campaign, driven by the Four Corners Office for Resource Efficiency, usually called 4CORE, is based on one developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and the city of Portland, Ore.
The model was so successful that the U.S. Department of Energy adopted it and published a guidebook for other communities.
Swanson’s house is receiving the 4-kilowatt system. The program also offers 5 and 6 kilowatt systems.
Gross price for the three sizes are $16,800, $20,200 and $23,250, respectively. Incentives such as a $300 per installed kilowatt rebate from La Plata Electric Association and a 30 percent federal tax credit make the net prices $10,920, $13,090 and $15,015, respectively.
To determine which system was appropriate for the Swanson house, John Shaw said his firm performed an analysis of its energy use based on three years’ worth of LPEA records.
“They were pretty conservative,” he said.
Lea said the generous federal-tax credit provides an incentive to convert homes before 2016.
“It use to be that you’d see panels at right angles to the roof. Now, they’re much less aesthetically obtrusive,” Lea said.
It will take two days for Shaw Solar, one of the five contractors involved in Solarize La Plata, to install the 16 solar panels on Swanson’s sloping, south-facing roof.
The north-facing roof is covered in a thick blanket of snow, begging the question, how will the men stay warm?
“Long johns and hand-warmers,” Shaw said.
cmcallister@durangoherald.com
To sign up
Solarize La Plata has extended the deadline to sign up for its solar-panel installation program to Feb. 28. For more information, call 259-1916.
