EPUD `walks the talk' on solar.

Byline: Karen McCowan The Register-Guard

The shamrock-colored roof atop the Emerald People's Utility District headquarters just got a little greener. This even though 90 black panels - each 5 feet long - now obscure much of EPUD's green metal roof.

The photo-voltaic (PV) panels make EPUD the first area utility to partially power its own offices with a solar energy system.

Very partially, project manager Joe Savage said: The 15.3-kilowatt system will generate about 17,500 kilowatt hours a year. That's only about 5 percent of the electricity needed to power the 80-employee headquarters.

But the project has huge educational potential for customers of the nonprofit electricity provider, which serves rural areas from Elmira to Mohawk.

"We want to walk the talk," Savage said. "We promote and support renewable energy. So putting a solar system on our building is consistent with our mission."

The PV project cost about $116,000. But EPUD is collaborating with one of its largest commercial customers, Lochmead Farms, to recover more than one-third of that outlay through federal and state tax credits.

As a nonprofit entity, EPUD pays no income taxes. But the utility will still be able to claim a rebate under a state-sanctioned "pass-through" arrangement with Lochmead Farms.

The Junction City dairy and convenience store company claims the expense of the project, receives the state tax credit, and writes a check for that amount to EPUD.

Lochmead co-owner Buzz Gibson said the company agreed to the deal "to take steps in the right direction on power conservation."

The solar array on EPUD's offices at 33733 Seavey Loop Road is a logical extension of its previous installation of 1.1-kilowatt PV systems at four high schools the utility powers: Cottage Grove, Elmira, Mohawk and Pleasant Hill. Each system produces about 1,150 kilowatt hours of power annually.

Each also includes an online monitoring system (www.fatspaniel.com) that lets students view the real-time output of their PV system.

Pleasant Hill science teacher Dick Erickson said the panels there provide, on average, only enough electricity to run the fluorescent lights of a single classroom.

"It's a demonstration project," he said. "It's right out in front of the school, so I get a lot of questions about it."

He's also incorporating the output data into lesson plans for his freshmen science classes, with students extrapolating the potential use of solar power in other buildings.

Logging onto the Web site revealed that Pleasant Hill High School's PV system, for instance, generated 4 kilowatt hours of electricity Monday.

Since its launch in April 2006, Fat Spaniel reported, the Pleasant Hill system has produced enough electricity to power 35 homes for a day.

And it did so without generating the estimated 2,166 pounds of greenhouse gases a carbon-based electricity source would have emitted to produce that power.

A computer station will be installed in the EPUD lobby to allow its customers to similarly track the impact of its larger PV system.

"We want the public to see firsthand how solar energy can work," Savage said.

There's still plenty of ignorance about the potential of PV energy, said Vince McClellan, president of Solar Energy Design, EPUD's contractor for the new project.

Many Oregonians assume the famously rainy Northwest is not suited to solar power, but research shows that a surprising amount of solar energy penetrates the cloud cover here.

"On the worst day of the year, it's about 10 percent, and on a typical overcast day, it's 25 percent," he said.

"And we get these long, hot summers," McClellan added. "So, in the course of a year, we have 80 percent as much solar resources as the best place in the United States, Arizona."

On average, he said, the Willamette Valley receives 4.2 kilowatt hours of irradiation per square meter per day.

Additionally, he added, PV systems operate more efficiently in cooler weather.

EPUD officials hope their office array will inspire district customers to consider installing solar devices. Savage noted that such systems can provide a far greater proportion of the power needed for homes and small businesses, where electricity consumption is far lower per square foot than at the 80-employee EPUD headquarters.

Savage said one Pleasant Hill area homeowner, who recently installed a system about one-third the size of the EPUD office array, expects to generate about one-third of his monthly electricity with the device.

At current power rates, it would take the man about 30 years to recoup his investment in the system through lower power bills. But with electricity rates expected to continue rising, the "payback" period will only get shorter, Savage said.

The utility also rewards residential customers who install such panels with a $2 per watt rebate and commercial customers with a $1 per watt rebate.

And EPUD joined other utilities in working with state Rep. Paul Holvey to pass legislation allowing Oregonians to deduct from their state taxes up to 50 percent of the cost of a roof-top solar system.