An old lot in Richwood may soon become a park featuring trellises with solar panels.
After two years of waiting, Create West Virginia and Richwood Blueprint Community will hold a groundbreaking event Saturday to begin construction of Helios Park in Richwood.
The idea for the park first began in early 2013 when Create West Virginia featured solar panels at its annual conference held in Richwood that year.
Once complete, the park will be located in an old lot across from the visitor’s center in Richwood. It will feature six solar panels mounted on white oak trellises that will look like trees. The entire space will be educational and feature a storm water filter, air purifier, energy generator, and solar power-net metering demonstrations.
Rebecca Kimmons is with Create West Virginia and is the Project Director for Helios Park.
“We think Richwood can have another life, and that’s what this park is all about,” Kimmons explained, “That’s why it’s so exciting. People in West Virginia tend to look back, and they remember when times were wonderful and times were good, and now they’re uncertain like so many of us about what the future’s gonna hold. So I think what this park is going to do is talk to people, demonstrate to people what the future could hold, if we have the political will to make it so.”
Create West Virginia hopes the park will be completed by the end of August this year.
Helios Park’s groundbreaking event will be held Saturday, April 18th at 9:30 AM. It’s free and open to the public.
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.
As electricity rates continue to climb, some communities are coming together to try to offset their bills by harnessing the power of the sun. It’s still a pretty novel idea in West Virginia but communities in Fayette and Monroe Counties are forming solar co-ops to help make it happen.
Solar co-operative: a newer trend where communities are using their collective powers to navigate the world of solar energy.
Community Power Network
Anya Schoolman lives in Washington DC and when her son pushed her to go solar in 2007, she decided all the research and effort that went into it would be worth it if she was doing it for a whole neighborhood.
“So he went door to door with a flier and two weeks later we had 50 houses signed up and no idea what we were going to do,” Schoolman recalled. “The first group, it took us two years, we got 45 houses solarized.”
Schoolman said ever since then other neighborhoods have been coming to her, wanting to do the same thing.
She started, and became the executive director of Community Power Network. In the last year and a half the non-profit has helped 16 neighborhoods in DC, Maryland, Virginia, and now West Virginia pull together to make installing solar panels a more attainable goal.
“We found out about this opportunity because we’ve been doing a lot of energy efficiency work, so we invited them here because we knew that Fayetteville would be an excellent place to find people who would be interested in this kind of thing,” said Ginger Danze of Fayette County.
Anyone who is interested signs up, for free.
About 27 residents are part of the solar co-op in Fayette County. Stiever and Schoolman met with community members to answer general questions and help community members make an informed decisions to best serve their solar needs.
There’s a competitive bidding process to choose an installer.
Schoolman and Stiever laid out and helped community members navigate through information about going solar, then they put a call out to solar installer for bids. Three companies responded with proposals (one from West Virginia, one from Maryland, and one from Ohio).
Whoever is chosen by the co-op does individualized site visits, and creates and offers custom designs to meet community needs.
Myles Murray, the company’s president, said his proposal focused on quality materials to guarantee a maximum lifetime of the systems as well as other technical perks. But he said a key aspect of his proposal also focused on partnering with the community, hiring local contractors to install the systems.
Then you buy together in bulk, saving anywhere from 20-30 percent on cost of supplies and installation.
Both the Fayette and the Monroe County co-ops will accept any interested parties through September. The co-op members are slated to be outfitted with solar panels by the first of the year.
Some Solar Details
Community Power Network says $8,000 – 15,000 is a good estimate for an average home solar system today.
Incentives include:
A 30 percent federal tax credit – Simply put, the next time you file taxes, you can write off 30 percent of the total cost of installing solar panels. It’s an offer that may expire in 2016.
Net-metering – Written into West Virginia’s law books: For every kilowatt hour produced, your bill is reduced by that amount. If you produce more than you use, you acquire credits that can be applied to future bills.
“The solar that you produce this year might be worth five or six hundred dollars,” Schoolman said, “but electric rates have been going up and up so that same amount of power that you produce five years from now might be worth 1000 dollars. So the cumulative savings you have from the power you generate is worth three, four, five times what the system actually costs.”
The Shepherdstown Presbyterians meet in a circa-1836 brick building that sits just across the street from the town’s post office- about two blocks from…
The Shepherdstown Presbyterians meet in a circa-1836 brick building that sits just across the street from the town’s post office- about two blocks from the main street.
A few years ago the growing congregation put on an addition that houses modern meeting and gathering rooms. Soon, the roof of this addition will be topped with solar panels thanks to the newly formed nonprofit organization Solar Holler.
After working on solar initiatives in several other east coast states, Dan Conant wanted to come back to Shepherdstown where he was born and raised, so he founded Solar Holler.
“And (I) really wanted to use solar as a way to diversify our state’s economy and it’s just always been really hard, there’s been lots of challenges put in the way and it wasn’t easy to make the business case right away,” Conant said. “So we needed to develop innovative methods to making solar affordable for these groups.”
Helping Non-Profits Save Energy Costs
Conant says there are federal tax incentives for installing solar system on buildings, but nonprofit organizations, like churches, are not able to take advantage of these incentives because they don’t pay any taxes to begin with.
So that often leaves nonprofits scrambling for money by collecting donations and applying for grants when they want to install something like the $60,000 system that will go on the Shepherdstown Presbyterian Church.
“Instead we’ve taken out a loan to cover the cost of the system and then that loan is paid back over the next five years when individual families and businesses around Shepherdstown install little remote control devices on their home or business water tanks,” Conant said.
Credit Cecelia Mason / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Church supporters have agreed to allow a Maryland company instal small boxes like this that manage energy use on their water heaters.
120 people have agreed to have the boxes installed on their electric water tanks. The boxes constantly measure electric demand and adjust the energy use of the water heaters accordingly.
The boxes belong to Mosaic Power, a Maryland company that pays property owners willing to participate. The supporters of the Shepherdstown Presbyterian Church project have agreed to give that payment to the church to pay back the loan over a five year period.
“About 40 percent of the church’s power would be coming from the solar panels on the roof here,” Than Hitt, a church member who serves on the solar committee, said.
“And that’s going to be a cost savings to the church moving forward,” Hitt said. “We know energy prices are increasing and this really is about a long term plan for financial stewardship.”
Expanding Across the State
The Shepherdstown Presbyterian Church project is the first of what Conant hopes will be many projects across West Virginia that will allow nonprofits and governments to lower their electric bills by installing solar panels.
He said a number of other organizations, including libraries, schools and affordable housing groups, have approached Solar Holler asking for help.
“We wanted to make a program that was not just going to work in Shepherdstown or in other fairly well-to-do places across the state; we wanted to make a system that could work for any community, any county, and any organization in West Virginia so long as they’ve got community support,” Conant said.
Hoping to Offset the ‘Brain Drain’
And Conant has a larger goal beyond giving nonprofits a way to save on energy costs. He hopes Solar Holler will help create jobs- the kind that young adults like him will be willing to do so they can stay in West Virginia.
“We can’t keep holding on to the jobs of the 1950’s and 60’s and thinking that’s the way it’s always going to be,” Conant said.
Conant wants to see jobs in West Virginia that include creative communities building new things. He mentions examples like solar power, software design and high tech industries.
“Its things that will stop the brain drain and actually keep people at home,” he said.
Conant said West Virginia has a lot to offer including amazing mountains, rafting and beauty.
“But we need to make it possible for people to actually make a living here and do it in a way that isn’t just punching a clock but is actually a joy to be a part of every single day,” he said.
The Shepherdstown Presbyterian Church expects to have its solar panels installed sometime in August. In the meantime, Conant is busy talking to other organizations to determine what the next big project will be.
This report caught the attention of Robin Mahonen, founder of a group called Wheeling Water Warriors. It inspired her to organize a public event for the Wheeling community to learn more about solar options.
Mahonen says the Warrior group was created to bring attention to the issues related to hydraulic fracking practices, particularly the possible dangers to public health and the environment. But they also want to promote sustainable ideas to the community.
One of the report’s authors, Aaron Sutch gave the presentation at the event, which took place at Wheeling Jesuit University. Sutch is the energy program manager at the Mountain Institute—an organization with a mission to promote economic development in mountain regions that include West Virginia and Nepal. He says solar power is a practical option to mitigate rising energy costs.
He says Wheeling, for example, gets about 80% of the solar resource that Miami does. He also points to the world leader in solar power, Germany, which has 5 times the amount of installed solar that we do in the US despite the fact that we get nearly twice as much solar resource.
“Solar is just a tremendously strong resource that is capable of being captured in a lot of different climates and WV is no exception,” Sutch says.
He says with proper policy incentives, and some public enthusiasm, solar is pretty-well set to soar in West Virginia.
“You have to remember with solar that you’re actually pre-paying your electricity for as long as the system lasts,” Sutch says about investing in solar panels. “Solar is estimated to last as long as 35 years. And you’re also paying for the benefit of being able to produce your own electricity, and that independence.”
As for Robin Mohonen, of the Wheeling Water Warriors? She says she and her husband Ed are jumping on the solar bandwagon as soon as possible.
“Eddie and I will be looking to put solar power on our house this late spring, early summer—as soon as the ice melts we’ll get those panels up there. We’re really excited about that.”
Development Committee of Wheeling’s City Council will hear a similar presentation on March 4th, at 12:30PM. Sutch says he’ll also be speaking with community members in Morgantown scheduled for February 20th.
A new report by two independent organizations says West Virginia is lagging behind in bolstering solar energy programs and providing solar energy jobs.The…
A new report by two independent organizations says West Virginia is lagging behind in bolstering solar energy programs and providing solar energy jobs.
The report points out surrounding states are benefiting from past investments into this renewable energy technology.
Two groups that support sustainable economic development, Downstream Strategies and The Mountain Institute, teamed up to compare West Virginia’s solar energy job growth to surrounding states.
The report, “Using Solar PV to Create Economic Opportunity and Energy Diversity in West Virginia” suggests West Virginia is not doing nearly enough to promote the solar industry, or create solar jobs.
These jobs include electricians, people responsible for placing solar panels on buildings, even regulators who are involved with solar jobs. The report says neighboring Ohio, Virginia, and Pennsylvania have taken some steps, creating more than 6,000 jobs related to this industry. Aaron Sutch is a co-author, who works with the Mountain Institute as Energy Program Manager.
“West Virginia is really lagging woefully behind. We’re fifty-first in per capita solar jobs, including the District of Columbia,” said Sutch.
The report suggests that West Virginia should adopt new energy standards and tax incentives as other states have done to encourage industry growth. The report also promotes what’s known as third party financing, in which private sector partners get involved, and provide financing to these projects.
