Posted June 15, 201014 yr Article published June 15, 2010 Wyandot County solar project finishes early Alternative-energy site started in September Toledo Blade By ALIYYA SWABY BLADE STAFF WRITER The largest solar power field in Ohio has been completed three months early. The Wyandot Solar project near Upper Sandusky now can supply electricity for more than 1,400 homes. Juwi Solar Inc., which built the power-generation project, announced yesterday it finished its work that began in September on an 83-acre site in Salem Township near an American Electric Power substation. It started supplying two American Electric companies - Ohio Power Co. and Columbus Southern Power - with 12 megawatts of power on May 26. Full story at: http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100615/BUSINESS01/6150397
June 15, 201014 yr Toledo moves to reinvent itself from Glass City to Solar City.By Judy Keen, USA TODAY TOLEDO — This city is trying to swap its Rust Belt image for a new identity as a hub of solar-energy research and production. The mission is being led by an unusual partnership of business, academia and government that could be a model for other aging industrial cities. "We are ready to do anything; we are ready to try anything," says University of Toledo President Lloyd Jacobs. Like many manufacturing cities, Toledo has struggled with the loss of jobs and tax revenue, but it has taken pieces of its past as the glass capital to create a new future in solar energy. Full story at: http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/2010-06-15-toledo15_CV_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip
June 15, 201014 yr Wow. "The impetus for collaboration came when Toledo's per-capita income, in the nation's top 10 in the 1970s, sank to the bottom 10 by 2000."
June 15, 201014 yr Article published June 15, 2010 Wyandot County solar project finishes early Alternative-energy site started in September Toledo Blade By ALIYYA SWABY BLADE STAFF WRITER The largest solar power field in Ohio has been completed three months early. The Wyandot Solar project near Upper Sandusky now can supply electricity for more than 1,400 homes. Juwi Solar Inc., which built the power-generation project, announced yesterday it finished its work that began in September on an 83-acre site in Salem Township near an American Electric Power substation. It started supplying two American Electric companies - Ohio Power Co. and Columbus Southern Power - with 12 megawatts of power on May 26. Full story at: http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100615/BUSINESS01/6150397 I would prefer to see these installed on the roofs of large structures rather than taking up arrable land.
June 18, 201014 yr This highlights some of the challenges facing U.S. companies, especially in green energy. Why go through government red tape here when China is awaiting you with open, loving arms? Clean Energy: Why Is China Ahead of the U.S.? Solar Start-Up in New Jersey Said China Gave Them a Deal They Couldn't Refuse By KI MAE HEUSSNER, ABC News, June 16, 2010 Chuck Provini, a former Marine with no fewer than 19 military decorations, considers himself a "good American and a patriot." He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy, served as a Marine Corps captain in the Vietnam War and has lived his whole life in the United States. But now that he's the president of a growing solar technology start-up, he's finding himself in a difficult position: He must leave the United States behind. His company, Natcore Technology, based in Red Bank, N.J., holds the license to technology that makes solar panels cheaper, more efficient and less toxic to the environment. He said he tried to commercialize the technology domestically, but while bureaucracy and red tape stalled talks with state and federal officials, conversations with Chinese officials sped ahead.
June 20, 201014 yr This is very relevant for Cleveland. We have lots of graduates with engineering and science degrees but no place for them to work. As a result they leave the area taking with them the investment in made in them by the community. It comes down to jobs, jobs, jobs. When are we going to learn that jobs is job #1. Social justice, equality, etc. etc. is all meaningless in a failing economy.
July 15, 20159 yr Report yields surprising results about Cleveland's solar energy market July 14, 2015 UPDATED 20 HOURS AGO By DAN SHINGLER It looks like Cleveland might be a better market for solar energy than some have predicted. It’s better than Chicago, for example, as well as Pittsburgh and Charlotte. It’s even a better market than sun-drenched Houston. That’s according to San Francisco-based BuildZoom, at least. BuildZoom is a website that helps homeowners, businesses and others to find qualified contractors for construction, remodeling and rehab work. To do its work, it looks at building permits to help determine what licensed contractors are doing around the country. BuildZoom looked at more than 75 million permits in doing its research. Recently, it decided it could also use its database to produce some statistics on solar energy installations as well, and it issued a report showing where solar is hot around the United States, as well as which contractors are the biggest when it comes to solar installations. It found some surprising results, about both Cleveland’s solar market and the market for photovoltaic installations in the United States generally. MORE: http://www.crainscleveland.com/article/20150714/NEWS/150719923/report-yields-surprising-results-about-clevelands-solar-energy "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
April 14, 20169 yr Roll-out solar panels. https://www.facebook.com/ecobicycle/videos/1132138376810832/
February 9, 20178 yr Not Ohio specific.... There are now twice as many solar jobs as coal jobs in the US http://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/2/7/14533618/solar-jobs-coal "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
February 9, 20178 yr Not Ohio specific.... There are now twice as many solar jobs as coal jobs in the US http://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/2/7/14533618/solar-jobs-coal "Now, mind you, comparing solar and coal is a bit unfair. Solar is growing fast from a tiny base, which means there's a lot of installation work to be done right now, whereas no one is building new coal plants in the US anymore. (Quite the contrary: Many older coal plants have been closing in recent years, thanks to stricter air-pollution rules and cheap natural gas.) So solar is in a particularly labor-intensive phase at the moment. Still, it’s worth thinking through what these numbers mean." Also, if a utility gets 30% of its energy from coal plants, are they counting 30% of their employees?
February 9, 20178 yr Does anyone know if there are active Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) programs in Northeast Ohio? The only search links I can find are from 2010 and dormant. I own a south facing, slate roofed house in Shaker Heights. I would like to replace the roof with Tesla slate-style solar shingles + 1 or 2 Powerwall batteries. PACE financing would smooth out the cost. Goal would be to install enough battery capacity to eventually charge 2 electric vehicles with >200 mile range batteries.
February 10, 20178 yr Random idea: solar companies should put some big solar installations in by Washington DC airport and other big city airports so that when government officials and businessmen from flyover country visit they see them and get normalized to the idea and encourage solar back home. www.cincinnatiideas.com
March 23, 20223 yr This probably isn't the exact right thread, but I couldn't find anywhere better. Has anyone on this forum gone solar? With the current 26% tax credit, current net metering rules that probably won't last, I feel like if there was ever a time to go solar it would be now. I recently had a couple different companies come to my house for quotes and a full system to run my house would cost over $40,000 but spread over a 20 year loan at 1.99% that's like $150 a month and I'd be paying Duke basically nothing except fees. It sounds good on paper but I would love to see if someone else has already successfully made this switch.
March 23, 20223 yr You need to factor in the risk that net metering rules will change for the worse, and soon. But yes, the 80% decline in solar prices over the 2010s is unlikely to be repeated in the 2020s. It's a significantly more mature technology now than it was a decade ago. My roof is more than 20 years old so I'm going to wait until it needs to be replaced anyway, then price what my options are for a regular roof, solar roof (Tesla or any competitors that may be active in the space at that time), and regular roof with solar panels. Fortunately, one large expanse of my roof is angled gently towards the southern sky, and there are few obstructions in that direction (got a good insolation level from https://sunroof.withgoogle.com/ for an Ohio home in an otherwise relatively wooded area).
March 23, 20223 yr 3 minutes ago, Gramarye said: You need to factor in the risk that net metering rules will change for the worse, and soon. The Duke paperwork makes it seem like once enrolled in net metering you remain enrolled in perpetuity, and most states I've looked into that have ended 1:1 net metering have included wording that grandfathers in the people already signed up for it. Definitely seems like the best time to get on the solar train is within 2022/2023 while the current rules are still in effect.
March 23, 20223 yr My wife and I are about to build a house on her family farm. I would really like to get in on the solar surge. For me, the hesitation is all the innerworkings of the system as a whole. So I'd like to hear some first-hand stories of those who have gone through the process. We're also looking at geothermal for our heating and air.
March 23, 20223 yr I’m hoping to add solar this year, and I’ve been looking into it for the past few years. I’d recommend Solar United Neighbors or some other co-op. I priced it out last year myself and through the co-op and it was a little cheaper. While net metering rules might get worse, I feel like there’s bound to be some sort of time-of-use or demand response electric rates in the future that would benefit those with solar + battery or EV with V2G.
March 23, 20223 yr The electric provider I will be using also has a solar co-op also. They charge $460 per panel and it’s yours for 25 years. It’s extremely tempting but probably not as good as having your own onsite, and obviously no battery backup.
February 15, 20232 yr If this is America's response to climate change, then America has lost its way. "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
February 15, 20232 yr 1 hour ago, KJP said: If this is America's response to climate change, then America has lost its way. Fortunately, many parts of America are having much more reasonable responses to climate change. Unfortunately, Ohio might be the most backwards state on climate change. Kasich's "pause" on renewable energy standards, House Bill 6, "green" natural gas, the law mentioned in this article are all such embarrassments.
June 6, 20232 yr On 3/23/2022 at 1:27 PM, ucgrady said: This probably isn't the exact right thread, but I couldn't find anywhere better. Has anyone on this forum gone solar? With the current 26% tax credit, current net metering rules that probably won't last, I feel like if there was ever a time to go solar it would be now. I recently had a couple different companies come to my house for quotes and a full system to run my house would cost over $40,000 but spread over a 20 year loan at 1.99% that's like $150 a month and I'd be paying Duke basically nothing except fees. It sounds good on paper but I would love to see if someone else has already successfully made this switch. More than a year later and I'm repeating @ucgrady's question, just to see if that answer has changed in the past year and/or if any new forumers may have made this switch. I think this is going to become a hotter (nearly literally ...) topic in the next year because of some very substantial price increases for power generation for Ohio consumers that either just kicked in or are just about to: https://fox8.com/news/major-rise-in-electric-bill-prices-starts-thursday/ In particular, leaving aside my own warning above that net metering rules could change at any time for the worse (I thought they were about to do just that a year ago, and AFAIK, they're still the same), as long as those rules are in place, I'm thinking that if the generation piece of your electric bill goes up, that should also impact the resale value of excess electricity sent back into the grid via net metering, right? Is it based on the generation rate in some way, at least (whether retail or wholesale), independent of the transmission & distribution component? I'm getting really curious about pulling the trigger myself, but even with the 30% tax credit, it would still be a major expense, and we have very high seasonal variability, so we either aim for the minimum to never need net metering and just be prepared to pay more from the grid during the summer, or we gamble that net metering will remain Ohio law and we aim for just over an annual break-even number. Just spent 45 minutes or so relearning some of this stuff and I'm still confused enough that I know I'd find some unpleasant surprises if I pulled the trigger. But the upcoming increases are going to be serious for my household, since we're heavy users (8-person household with an EV).
June 6, 20232 yr So I did end up getting solar panels almost exactly a year ago on my house and generated 13.46 MWh this past year. I got the whole system for about $35,000 and have 1.99% interest. The regret I have is that my heat is still gas, so Duke still took a bunch of my money over the winter (I could switch to an electric furnace in the future but I don't think it's worth it right now) but electrically I paid nothing to Duke. So it's a question of paying ~$115 towards the loan every month vs paying whatever the price would be for my monthly electrical bill. Dealing with Duke and setting up the net metering was taken care of by the solar installer, but even still I have had to call them about my billing a couple times after my system was hooked up because they appear to be either A. not knowledgeable about net metering or B. actively trying to avoid net metering. The first month I 'used' electricity last November they charged me money and I had to call them and discuss with them that I had credits from the previous x number of months and they ended up fixing it but their basic billing is not set up well for net metering and it took a few levels of people before I got someone who knew what I was even talking about to help me. As prices go up I hope to see more savings because right now to be perfectly honest it feels like a wash. The positive is that my money went to a solar company instead of Duke, my monthly cost is constant and my interest money goes to a locally based bank. Oh and also my electricity is green which over it's lifetime might makeup for one of Taylor Swift's private jet flights.
June 6, 20232 yr 15 minutes ago, Gramarye said: More than a year later and I'm repeating @ucgrady's question, just to see if that answer has changed in the past year and/or if any new forumers may have made this switch. I think this is going to become a hotter (nearly literally ...) topic in the next year because of some very substantial price increases for power generation for Ohio consumers that either just kicked in or are just about to: https://fox8.com/news/major-rise-in-electric-bill-prices-starts-thursday/ In particular, leaving aside my own warning above that net metering rules could change at any time for the worse (I thought they were about to do just that a year ago, and AFAIK, they're still the same), as long as those rules are in place, I'm thinking that if the generation piece of your electric bill goes up, that should also impact the resale value of excess electricity sent back into the grid via net metering, right? Is it based on the generation rate in some way, at least (whether retail or wholesale), independent of the transmission & distribution component? I'm getting really curious about pulling the trigger myself, but even with the 30% tax credit, it would still be a major expense, and we have very high seasonal variability, so we either aim for the minimum to never need net metering and just be prepared to pay more from the grid during the summer, or we gamble that net metering will remain Ohio law and we aim for just over an annual break-even number. Just spent 45 minutes or so relearning some of this stuff and I'm still confused enough that I know I'd find some unpleasant surprises if I pulled the trigger. But the upcoming increases are going to be serious for my household, since we're heavy users (8-person household with an EV). I got solar in August last year. I highly recommend Solar United Neighbors if it's available in your county. They bid a large group of projects in a single county to interested installers to get better pricing for everyone. The solar installers just boil it down to a single price per Watt that anyone in the program pays, regardless of the size of the install. They can offer better pricing because the customer acquisition cost is so low. I have an EV and heat pump/electric resistance heating, plus my roof was space-limited to 7.6 kW, so my demand is highest in the winter, and even in the best months I don't generate a huge excess. May was actually my first month with excess production, so I'm not sure yet how FirstEnergy will handle net metering. I paid cash, and expect about an 11 year payback period. However, that number will go down if electric rates continue to increase as quickly as they have been. I also anticipate breakthroughs in bi-directional EV charging during the lifetime of my panels that would give me backup power (as long as I wouldn't have to drive my EV) and/or the ability to take advantage of time-of-use rates (which I also expect to come about during the lifetime of my panels), which are both value-added propositions that solar provides.
June 12, 20232 yr On 6/6/2023 at 2:35 PM, ucgrady said: So I did end up getting solar panels almost exactly a year ago on my house and generated 13.46 MWh this past year. I got the whole system for about $35,000 and have 1.99% interest. The regret I have is that my heat is still gas, so Duke still took a bunch of my money over the winter (I could switch to an electric furnace in the future but I don't think it's worth it right now) but electrically I paid nothing to Duke. So it's a question of paying ~$115 towards the loan every month vs paying whatever the price would be for my monthly electrical bill. Dealing with Duke and setting up the net metering was taken care of by the solar installer, but even still I have had to call them about my billing a couple times after my system was hooked up because they appear to be either A. not knowledgeable about net metering or B. actively trying to avoid net metering. The first month I 'used' electricity last November they charged me money and I had to call them and discuss with them that I had credits from the previous x number of months and they ended up fixing it but their basic billing is not set up well for net metering and it took a few levels of people before I got someone who knew what I was even talking about to help me. As prices go up I hope to see more savings because right now to be perfectly honest it feels like a wash. The positive is that my money went to a solar company instead of Duke, my monthly cost is constant and my interest money goes to a locally based bank. Oh and also my electricity is green which over it's lifetime might makeup for one of Taylor Swift's private jet flights. Btw, depending on the age of your furnace, you could replace it with a heat pump which would qualify for the tax credit. In theory, you could get an electric heat pump (or furnace), electric hot water tank (or electric heat pump water heater), and go with an electric or induction range / cooktop if you don't have one already and then just cut out gas altogether. There's a $2,000 annual credit limit on the heat pumps & heat pump water heaters. Very Stable Genius
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