South Coast Solar

Solar panels have blanketed the southern side of the roof of Thomas Koch’s Fontainebleau area home since summer, but he wasn’t able to harvest any electricity from them until early last month because of delays in getting a special meter activated.

Jennifer Zdon / The Times-PicayuneThomas Koch’s Fontainebleau home is one of only 16 that has a special meter that allows property owners to sell power back to Entergy.

The meter must pass muster with Entergy, the utility that ultimately stands to lose business from customers like Koch who switch to solar power.

“I found it very frustrating, ” said Koch, who spent $49,000 on the solar panels and insulation. “I did it because I was sick of paying $500 electricity bills. It’s not a small investment.”

Koch is among the city’s first homeowners to install a solar energy system to help power his house. Just 16 “net meters, ” special electricity meters that allow property owners to sell power back to the utility, are in operation in the city, according to Entergy New Orleans Inc. Most have been installed since Jan. 1, 2008, when a lucrative state tax credit — considered the nation’s most generous solar incentive — took effect.

Local homeowners can qualify for state tax credits that could refund as much as 50 percent of the cost of a system, as well as federal tax credits that cover up to 30 percent of the cost of a system, depending on the size of one’s income and the system.

But solar pioneers such as Koch are finding that the process is anything but smooth.

Distributors of solar panels are mostly on the east or west coasts, so getting equipment shipped to Louisiana takes extra time and money. The city is grappling with which permits to require and how much to charge for them. And for the utility, having customers become independent power producers is a whole new ballgame.

“It hasn’t been done 100 times. It’s been done 10, 20 times, ” said Stephen Shelton, executive director of the Louisiana CleanTech Network, an association that is trying to develop a solar industry in the state. “We have a new industry. We have a city who needs to learn about the industry in terms of safety and permitting, and we have Entergy, who has to get on board in terms of connecting people to the grid.”

John McGowin, the city’s energy director, discovered that as many as four city permits can be required for someone to install solar panels on their home — a building permit, a mechanical permit, an electrical permit and a plumbing permit — each one with a fee.

He’s trying to get it down to one permit that costs a minimal amount. McGowin plans to raise the issue at the next Louisiana State Code Council meeting Jan. 13.

He has been meeting with solar installers, Entergy and city inspectors. “We’re still kicking around some ideas, ” he said.

Meanwhile, McGowin discovered that customers seeking one of those special “net meters” faced tedious demands from the utility. Entergy handed them a 54-page packet with a 14-page application and a 40-page contract outlining requirements for a power producer that sells electricity to the utility.

In working with Entergy and the solar industry, McGowin said, they’ve whittled that down to a four-page packet: a two-page application and two pages of information.

“It was just ridiculous, ” he said. “It’s just a standard form that’s been out there for 20 years. It’s been posted there for years and years and years and years, and no one’s ever bothered to say, ‘We don’t need this.’ “
Delays fuel suspicions
With the national real estate market in decline and sky-high electricity bills last summer, Koch, a contractor, decided to take advantage of the tax credits to install solar panels, both to save on monthly power bills and to set his home apart should he decide to sell it.

He spent $42,000 on the solar system, plus $7,000 upgrading the insulation in his home so that power he generated wouldn’t be wasted on leaking heat or air conditioning. Koch expects to get about $20,000 back from the tax credits and hopes the energy improvements will lower his power consumption by one-half to two-thirds.

Installers rushed to get the panels on his house just before Hurricane Gustav hit Sept. 1, but Entergy New Orleans didn’t come out to turn on the system until Dec. 2, costing him three months of use at a time when his cooling bills were high.

Koch said he can understand that Hurricanes Gustav and Ike would have caused some delays, but he suspects that Entergy is stalling because it stands to lose money if many people switch to solar.

“If Entergy turns me on the grid, they lose money. It seems like they’re trying to push it out as far as possible, ” said Koch, who said he was told by his installer that he’s not the only one to face a delay. “It’s so characteristic of what’s been going on in New Orleans. Individuals who are trying to go forward are being held back.”

Entergy says it doesn’t oppose solar power, though the company does want solar purchasers to be realistic about how much electricity they can produce. The company says that, by law, it has three months to activate a net meter after a property owner applies for one.

Who is responsible for the delays is a matter of dispute, and may simply be a result of poor communication and uncertainty about the process on all sides.

Morgan Stewart, a spokesman for Entergy New Orleans, said that although Koch’s panels were installed in August, Entergy didn’t receive an application for a net meter until Nov. 8. It got a revised application on Nov. 25, he said, and installed the meter the following week. “I think most times we’re fairly quick in getting the meter up, ” Stewart said.

Troy Von Otnott, president of South Coast Solar, the installer, said his company did not send the net-metering application for a few weeks after Gustav because it knew that Entergy was busy restoring power across the state and because the employee in charge of solar power was in Houston helping with Ike restorations.

Von Otnott said he faxed the application in late September. Entergy later told him that the fax was unreadable and asked him to resend it by e-mail. He did so well before Nov. 8, he said, adding that he never sent in a “revised application.”
Speedier process
Von Otnott and other installers say the process of getting people’s systems activated has improved in recent weeks, and they say that it’s imperative that things speed up.

“We need to make sure that they’re done right so that people tell their neighbors, ” said Robert Hopkins, local managing partner for Gulf South Solar, a Baton Rouge installer company.

But as the city, Entergy and solar sales companies work together to streamline the installation and activation of solar panels, the aspiring industry faces new hurdles as it looks for a local toehold.

Marvin Wilcher of 3rd Rock Solar Systems, a solar company that expanded from California to Louisiana because of the tax credits, said many people in Louisiana need to make serious insulation improvements before solar is worthwhile.

Of greater concern, Wilcher said, is finding that many people who would have financed their systems with a loan or home-equity line of credit no longer qualify.

“In the past they would have been financed on the spot, ” Wilcher said. Now, “we go out and get 10 people signed up and you get two people qualified.”

Indeed, Jeremie Branton, president of Freedom Power in Haughton, a Bossier Parish solar installer, said solar hot-water systems or pool heating systems are so far proving more viable because they’re less expensive and generate quicker returns. The credit crunch and decline in energy prices have cooled interest in bigger systems this fall.

“I don’t know if people don’t have the money to invest, or they lost all their money in the stock market, or if with energy prices coming down, they’re not as concerned about energy costs, ” he said. “Business was booming the first few months of this year, and then with this economic downturn, I haven’t had all that much interest in it.”

Source:  NOLA.com