A group of Ben Franklin Career Center students has been assembling solar panel kits that will bring electricity to Navajo homes.
The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports the six students spoke at a presentation Thursday at Ben Franklin about the kits.
Student Traevon Isabell says each kit includes a panel that charges a detachable battery, which can light up the LEDs included in a light panel when the sun isn’t shining. The battery also has a USB plug that can charge devices like cell phones.
Isabell says the kits will be sent to the Navajo Nation, which is in Arizona and New Mexico and has about 18,000 people without power.
Mountaineer Power and Energy has raised money to put together 16 kits. The state Department of Education has provided $7,500 in funding that will build 60 more kits.
Shepherd University is teaming up with a wind farm in Greenbrier County to teach students about renewable energies through an internship program.
Shepherd University held a symposium on renewable energy Friday as part of the inauguration of the school’s 16th president, Dr. Mary Hendrix. The symposium featured three speakers Hendrix referred to as “all-star experts” in energy.
Michael Polsky was one of those speakers. Polsky is the founder of Invenergy based out of Chicago, which started commercial operations in West Virginia in November 2015.
Polsky announced that Invenergy’s Beech Ridge Energy Storage Project in Rupert in Greenbrier County will partner with Shepherd University to hire a student each summer to learn about the real-world applications of renewable energy, such as:
“Biological conservation, potentially some others, you know, data collection; things like that,” Polsky explained, “and they will see firsthand, you know, how this project operates and what does it take to operate and maintain them, and hopefully they will tell other people, and there’ll be more interest.”
Polsky says universities shape young minds, so it’s important for them to stay ahead of the curve.
“Institutions like Shepherd University have to be on the forefront of change, of innovation, of really, to provide direction to young people in their career, you know, their future careers, where sort of the world is going, and I feel that energy is one of the really transformational areas we’re witnessing now.”
An outdoor adventure company is opening what state officials say is the first solar-powered hotel in West Virginia.
A ribbon cutting is planned Wednesday at the renovated Quality Inn in Harpers Ferry. The event is open to the public.
River Riders Inc. bought the hotel as part of its offerings to whitewater rafting enthusiasts on the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers.
The West Virginia Department of Commerce says in a news release that the hotel has the third-largest solar array in the state. The office says the rooftop configuration has 289 solar panels that will produce enough energy to offset at least $10,000 in annual electricity costs.
The system was designed and installed by Mountain View Solar of Berkeley Springs.
In the first days of the 2015 Legislative session, energy was the focus of legislators’ attention. A bill that first began as a total repeal of the alternative and renewable energy portfolio act soon became only a partial repeal as lawmakers’ attempted to leave in place current net metering standards.
Those standards govern the way solar energy is calculated and credited between a customer and an electric company. As the legislative session progressed, however, another bill relating to those same net metering standards came to lawmakers’ desks. The overall opinion of the new bill, which has been signed into law, is mixed.
The Bolivar-Harpers Ferry Public Library in the Eastern Panhandle had solar panels installed on their roof in January and in just a few short months has already started seeing the benefits.
Gretchen Frye is the director of the Bolivar-Harpers Ferry Public Library, and she says in March, the library saw an 8% decrease in its electric bill which can make a big difference for libraries who struggle for funding.
Credit Liz McCormick / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
The back of Bolivar-Harpers Ferry Public Library and its set of solar panels.
“Libraries face, you know, budget crunches, and in our experience libraries, the demand for libraries continues to increase, but at the same time our budgets are staying the same or are even decreasing,” Frye explained, “so, we, this is a creative way for us to save some money for the library and help the environment at the same time.”
Frye says as the weather gets better she expects their electric bill to continue to drop.
Mountain View Solar installed the library’s solar panels. Located in Berkeley Springs, it’s the largest solar installation company in the state. Mike McKechnie is the company’s president and he explains one of the major differences between buildings that use rooftop solar and buildings that don’t is the way the electricity generated is metered.
“Everybody has an electric meter on their house, and it usually spins in one direction,” McKechnie said, “It counts the number of kilowatts, the amount of power that you’re using, they read it at the end of the month and they send you a bill, you pay the bill, and you get to do that happy event every month for the rest of your life,”
Homes with solar panels use a different meter though called a net meter.
“Net metering is where a new meter gets put on that spins both directions,” he explained, “When I’m buying power, let’s say you’re buying power at your house, you’re spending money on your bill, because you’re buying power, well if you’ve got solar on your house, you might be making all the power that your house is using, and you’re making excess. The power goes back to the utility meter and spins the opposite direction.”
That excess power is collected from the homes where it’s generated, returned to the power grid and ultimately sold by the power companies. Instead of being paid for generating power, net metering rules written by the state’s Public Service Commission in 2011 dictated solar customers receive a credit for the power they generate. They can then use the credit to buy power from the utility when they generate less than they need.
Those rules, however, were part of the state’s alternative and renewable energy portfolio act, an act that was repealed this session. Democratic Senator Herb Snyder of Jefferson County was one of many lawmakers concerned with the repeal.
“I think it was a step backwards,” Snyder noted, “that most states have an energy portfolio, we’re an energy state, so it just seems to be ridiculous not to have an energy portfolio, that’s why then Governor Manchin, now US Senator Manchin, did that; to make a collage of energy sources.”
Credit Liz McCormick / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Inside the Bolivar-Harpers Ferry Public Library.
The alternative and renewable energy portfolio called on electric companies in West Virginia to produce 25 percent of their electricity with alternative and renewable sources by 2025.
But this session, lobbyists from the coal industry told lawmakers the standards were hurting the mining industry, even though utilities testified they were already meeting the production standards. As the bill began to move through the process, Snyder and other members of the Eastern Panhandle lobby grew more concerned that a repeal of the portfolio would result in a repeal of the net metering rules that protected solar panel owners.
“I immediately picked it up and said we really don’t want to do this, so instead of trying to carve that out of the original repeal, they originated another bill to put that back in code,” Snyder said.
House Bill 2201 was meant to do just that; put those rules back in code. Approved and signed into law, the bill requires the state PSC to rewrite the net metering standards.
McKechnie says he and other solar energy advocates are not happy with the bill. McKechnie believes the large utility companies want the PSC to rewrite the rules to uproot rooftop solar by charging the ratepayer more money without receiving credits for the energy they are producing.
“This attack with 2201 is about trying to impose an additional cost to everyone that has a net meter,” McKechnie said, “Why would you direct the Public Service Commission to look at the cost only of a new generation facility without the benefit to the ratepayer?”
Credit Liz McCormick / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Backup batteries inside Mountain View Solar.
Senator Snyder however supported the bill after hearing from those companies in committee meetings before the bill’s passage.
“The power companies are saying, positively, and my question in committee, I put them on the spot, is, are you going to increase the fees or costs to homeowners and small libraries and so forth, and they said positively not, no, now I have to take them at their word on that for something I’m not an expert on,” Snyder said.
Snyder says as it was explained to him, the additional cost will come for some solar producers, but those are producers with large solar farms, not homeowners with smaller numbers of panels.
“They’re looking predominantly at the larger solar farms that are owned by probably investors, one or many, to build these power generation units solely for the sake of selling power onto the grid,” he explained.
Snyder says installing the net meters into these large facilities can be costly and utilities want to ensure that under the new rules those costs won’t be passed along to the consumers, whether they produce solar power or not.
Jim Kotcon is the Chair for the Energy Committee in the West Virginia Chapter of the Sierra Club, a group that advocates for solar and other renewable energies. Kotcon says the Sierra Club would like to see net metering expanded under the new PSC rules.
“One of the things that we think would be important is to actually try to expand net metering and the opportunities for homeowners to put on solar panels or wind generation and other types of renewable energy,” said Kotcon, “We think that the market is moving this direction very quickly, much more quickly than the utilities are able to adjust too. And we’d like to see the utilities sit down and develop the kinds of plans that would be needed to help transition our electric industry into something that will take advantage of renewable energy much more easily.”
Senator Snyder, however, says he thinks once the Public Service Commission evaluates the current net metering standards; it’s likely those standards will stay as they are.
Representatives of the coal and gas industry as well as solar are expected to speak at a public forum in Martinsburg next week. The forum is about energy and how it relates to West Virginia’s economy.
This forum is titled, “Flipping the Switch: the Business of Energy and West Virginia.” Panelists include Mike McKenchnie, president of Mountain View Solar in Berkeley Springs; Corky DeMarco, executive director of the West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association; and Chris Hamilton, senior vice president of the West Virginia Coal Association.
Julia Krall is the chair of the Student MBA Advisory Council at Shepherd University and the organizer of the forum. She hopes it gives people living in the Eastern Panhandle a chance to ask questions.
“I feel like this is an opportunity to bring together some of the decision makers who spend a lot more time in Charleston and kind of forget us over here a little bit,” Krall said, “and really get the people who are making decisions and making policies about our energy choices in the state and actually putting them in front of the public and really creating this community, sort of dialogue where questions can be answered, and you know there really can be a connection between the decisions that are made and how they affect our economy, our local businesses, and so on.”
“Flipping the Switch: the Business of Energy and West Virginia” will begin at 7:00 PM, Wednesday, March 25th at the McFarland House in Martinsburg. The forum is free and open to the public, but registration is required due to limited seating.
West Virginia can actually thrive under new U.S. Environmental Protection Regulations that aim to reduce greenhouse gasses, according to three panelists participating in a public forum last week in Shepherdstown.
West Virginia must cut back its carbon emission rate by 20 percent by the year 2030 under the EPA regulations. The panelists leading the forum, entitled EPA Carbon Rules: How Can West Virginia Lead? voiced confidence that the state can meet that goal and create jobs as well. The West Virginia chapter of the Sierra Club organized the event. Jefferson County resident Mary Anne Hitt is director of the organization’s Beyond Coal Campaign
“There is a lot of misinformation out there about this rule, and what it requires of coal or gas or energy efficiency,” Hitt noted, “and the fact of the matter is, here in West Virginia, we can meet the standard through energy efficiency, through wind and solar. Through clean energy that’s going to provide a lot of new jobs in the state, and it’s a really exciting opportunity, and we all know that we’re struggling with low employment here in West Virginia, and we need more economic opportunity, and this is a great way to bring it to the state.”
Aside from Hitt, two other panelists seemed to get the most reaction from the audience. One was David Levine who is a leader in the West Virginia solar industry. Levine is founder and CEO of the company Geosteller Solar which is based in Martinsburg.
“This regulation is not job killing regulation,” said Levine, “It really is going to spur a whole new energy economy, which is really good for consumers, and that’s actually going to lower their utility bills, and it’s going to spur jobs, because solar creates many more jobs per Megawatt than big centralized nuclear power plants or coal plants, or natural gas power plants.”
Levine says that the installation process is frighteningly simple.
“Our business is solar energy marketplace, and the idea is we match people who want to go solar with the right solutions. We tell you exactly how much energy you can produce on your particular rooftop, and then the value of that energy based on the energy you’ll displace. So if I used to have a monthly energy bill of $120 a month, it says your new total electricity cost with your solar, plus what you’ll still paying your utility company for a reduced usage might be down to $80 a month, and that’s what we compare.”
Levine says once Geostellar Solar does a site assessment of your home, it takes a licensed contractor about a day to install the panels. But if it’s so easy, why aren’t more people taking advantage of it?
“The reason people aren’t going solar today is because they don’t have role models, where it’s still so sparse, there’s not a sense of oh, it’s common. It’s hard to say when the tipping point is going to be, it’s like the movement from the horseless carriage to the automobile. You know, cars were foreign, it was like, how can this possibly move without this horse. It’s going to be the same thing at some point. People aren’t going to talk about solar energy, it’s just going to be energy.”
Marketing Consultant and Jefferson County resident Sean O’Leary, says the numbers involving jobs in coal just don’t add up.
“From the time West Virginia hit its peak in employment in 1940 with about 130,000 jobs, we have dropped down to only about 19,000 jobs now,” explained O’Leary, “but in the meantime, the extraction of coal has actually increased. The bottom line is that employment in the coal industry has not ever, at least since 1929, been driven by the volume of coal that’s being extracted, and so consequently when politicians say that by defending the industry and increasing the…helping to increase the use of coal, they’re defending West Virginia jobs, it simply isn’t true.”
The conversation about how the new EPA regulations will impact the country will continue at a public hearing in Washington DC on July 29th. The Sierra Club is sponsoring a bus to take Eastern Panhandle residents who are interested in attending.
