SCE

Housing Authority of San Bernardino Marks Completion of Solar Power Installation Built by HelioPower to Benefit Low-Income Families with Free Solar Energy

Southern California Edison (SCE) awarded its first and largest Multifamily Affordable Solar Housing (MASH) Track 2 Grant of $1,840,000 to The Housing Authority of the County of San Bernardino (HACSB) yesterday at a “70 & Solar” celebration.  The presentation took place at the Maplewood Homes affordable housing community, home to over 1100 residents.  The event focused attention on the innovative “green” project which incorporates solar retrofits atop 100 of the community’s rooftops, green job training and creation as well as ongoing solar production monitoring and green outreach.

65 residents, community members, and representatives of SCE, HACSB, San Bernardino city council members and HelioPower, the solar

Southern California Edison awarded its first and largest MASH Track 2 Grant ($1,840,000) to the Housing Authority of San Bernardino for the Maplewood Homes solar power system installed by HelioPower. From left to right: Maurice Camp (Project Manager, HACSB), Susan Benner (President/CEO, HACSB), Gustav Joslin (Chief Operating Officer, HACSB), Aileen Lagbao (SCE MASH Administrator), John Bogardt (Project Manager, HACSB), and Tom Millhoff (VP Business Development, HelioPower). Source: HACSB.

installation firm on the project, all gathered in the community center to applaud the completion of the “green” project and HACSB’s 70^th anniversary.  The celebration included the presentation of a $1,840,000 solar program rebate check by SCE to Susan Benner, HACSB’s President/CEO.

“We extend a warm welcome to the Housing Authority into the solar community,” said Aileen Lagbao, Program Manager, MASH & Solar Thermal for Southern California Edison, as she presented the grant check.

“The MASH Track 2 award has provided employment for our residents and local businesses.  Families at the site have also been learning about conservation measures including the benefits of solar power and conserving energy,” said Benner.

100% of the clean energy generated from the solar power system will benefit residents at this affordable housing community.  An average family at Maplewood Homes spends $572 annually on electricity. Community-wide the average cost saving from the solar power generated energy will be $166 per unit per year, or about 30%.

HACSCB worked with HelioPower in the development of the grant proposal, engineering and construction of the solar power system and development and delivery of the educational, training and Internet components of the program.  A solar and energy efficiency seminar was presented to residents as part of the program by Tom Millhoff, Vice President of Business Development at HelioPower.

“This is part of a larger more comprehensive strategy the Housing Authority is developing for energy management.  It’s our intention to reduce energy and water use across our housing portfolio, which today includes over 3,000 units of affordable, market rate and senior housing,” explained Benner.

This project is the first of many solar installations that the Housing Authority is pursuing to show its’ commitment to implementing green initiatives not only to increase sustainability and save energy, but also to provide employment opportunities for its residents in the growing green-building industry.  HelioPower hired two residents and one community member giving them the opportunity to learn a new trade and gain solar industry expertise.

The California Solar Initiative MASH Track 2 funds supported the installation of a 302 kilowatt (kW) DC solar photovoltaic facility at Maplewood Homes. The 100 solar power systems were engineered and installed by HelioPower.

The MASH Track 2 funds supported the installation of a 302 kilowatt (kW) DC solar photovoltaic facility on 98 residential homes and 2 community buildings at Maplewood Homes.  85% of the clean energy production will go to residents and 15% will be channeled through common area energy savings to help fund on-site employment.  The solar facility will offset over 1500 kilowatt hours (kWh) per unit annually.

Maplewood Homes is an affordable housing community located at 1738 West 9^th Street, San Bernardino, CA.  It was built in the late ‘40’s and has undergone several renovations.

“I lived here on 10^th street and played here as a child. The transformation at this community is marvelous,” said San Bernardino Councilmember, Rikke Van Johnson in his event presentation.  “Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

HelioPower ‘s Tom Millhoff said, “HACSB’s demonstrated outstanding initiative, creativity and financial savvy in developing this solar project in conjunction with a major energy efficiency retrofit and property upgrades at the affordable housing community of Maplewood Homes.  The result is substantially improved living environment for residents, reduced living expenses, and a shining legacy that sets the ‘green standard’ for other Housing Authorities.”

Source: Run On Sun, September 9, 2011

From "State of Solar California" post by Jim Jenal:  In the first two installments in this series (Part 1 and Part 2) we looked at the most recent data from the California Solar Initiative (CSI) covering the first half of 2011 in Southern California Edison's (SCE) service area. Using that data we identified trends in cost, equipment and system efficiency.

Who Charges What?
Here is a chart of the Cost per Watt for the largest installation companies in the SCE service area (you can click on the chart to see it full size):

First, let us give credit where it is due.  The low end outlier is HelioPower, Inc., at $6.56/Watt, and they did it with an efficiency factor of 87% – second best of anyone on that chart. Nice.

But who is that way off in left field?  Coming in at a staggering $13.32/Watt – a full $1.40 higher than their nearest competitor and more that twice what HelioPower is charging – is Galkos Construction, Inc., also known as GCI Energy, out of Huntington Beach.  For that money, they must surely be offering only the most efficient and sophisticated technology, right?  Not so much.  To the contrary, the average installation efficiency for Galkos is only 84.9% – the second worst on the chart and well below the average of 86.11%.  In fact, 99% of the time Galkos appears to use Sharp panels – not exactly an exotic solar panel brand – and in particular the Sharp ND-224UC1 panel (66.5%). A quick Google search reveals that the Sharp ND-224UC1 can be purchased, at retail, for $2.65/Watt or less.  Given that Galkos handled 400 projects in this data set, it is hard to believe that their price for all of their equipment, particularly the Sharp panels, would not be not heavily discounted.

Quality Counts

Quality, of course, is important, and the data does not reveal – though the Internet hints at – the quality of installations from Galkos.  Here is how the company describes its own product offerings (from the “Services” page of their website):

Solar by GCI [Galkos Construction, Inc.] Energy
GCI Energy is the largest solar company in Southern California with over 30,000 customers. So you get the most knowledgeable professionals, excellent customer service and a better price.GCI Energy solar offers the highest efficiency solar panels on the market – those manufactured by Sharp. With Sharp Solar Panels, GCI Energy can tailor a solar panel installation to your specific needs and lifestyle, so you get maximum performance without a maximum investment.
(Emphasis added.)

Does Galkos actually have 30,000 solar customers?  Certainly not (nobody does).  Are they providing “a better price"?  It is not clear what their standard of comparison might be – but their price is not better than any of their major competitors in that chart.  And of course, the statement does not define what they mean by “the highest efficiency solar panels on the market,” but it seems unlikely that Sharp would make that claim.  Here’s one chart that concludes that they couldn’t (note the efficiency of the SunPower and Sanyo panels first, then search for Sharp).

All we can say in response is, caveat emptor.

Oddities – SolarCity

Now we turn to the Oddities section of this post.  Unlike the outliers, which were always of interest to us, we were not looking for the oddity we report here – it literally just jumped out at us.

Sold versus Leased

Question: What is the difference in reported cost between systems sold directly to the end customer and those that are leased (i.e., have a third-party owner in CSI parlance)?

The initial difference that we stumbled upon was so startling that we knew we needed to narrow our focus and control for as many variables as possible to isolate that one factor.  To achieve that end we restricted the data to those residential systems (i.e., between 1 and 10 kW) that were “pending” in the CSI/SCE data (thus, the newest proposed systems in the data which, based on our Part 1 analysis should mean the lowest cost systems). That way our project sample would be as homogenous as possible, eliminating cost variations based on system size and timing.

Given those restrictions, the top 5 installation companies in which the system is owned by a third party are: Verengo (482 systems), SolarCity (468), American Solar Direct (124), Sungevity (99), and HelioPower (63).  Of those five, only two also have direct sales projects pending: Verengo (7) and SolarCity (9).  Let’s see how they compare:

What is going on here?  For Verengo, as the number of systems increases – which it does in going from sold systems to leased systems – their cost per Watt decreases – which is what we would expect.  But not so for SolarCity – even though they are leasing 50 times as many systems as they are selling, their cost for the leased systems went up – way up – as in up by $3.12/Watt!

For the complete post by Jim Jenal of Run On Sun, please link here: http://runonsun.com/~runons5/blogs/blog1.php/solecon/state-of-solar-california-part3

If you received a letter and selection form recently mailed from Southern California Edison’s (SCE) to Net Energy Metered (NEM) customers, as required by AB 920, this information if for you.  On October 11, 2009, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed Assembly Bill 920 (AB920 – Huffman – Solar and Wind Generation) into law.  This law addresses several aspects of renewable energy in California.  One provision of the law that directly affects SCE NEM customers is a requirement that SCE offer customers compensation for any net surplus electricity generated over a 12-month period.

AB 920 also requires that the California Public Utilities Commission set the compensation amount for surplus electricity by January 1, 2011.  The compensation amount will be used to pay eligible customers for net surplus electricity generated during their relevant period ending in 2011.  SCE will notify customers of the compensation amount as soon as it is established; then, they will have the option to either receive payment for their surplus electricity, or have the surplus electricity credited towards their electricity usage in their next relevant period.

Note that although SCE is automatically enrolling its NEM customers in the compensation option beginning with customer's next relevant period, customers have the option to end their current relevant period now and start a new relevant period for tracking their surplus energy.  To do this, SCE customers are encouraged to fill out the form which was mailed to them in January and return it to notify SCE of their choice.

When available, the revised NEM tariff will be posted online at: www.sce.com/schedulenem.

SCE is available to assist with any questions regarding these new options. Please feel free to contact SCE Customer Service:

Residential NEM Customers
(866) 701-7868

Business NEM Customers
(866) 701-7869