Solar power could give homeowners needed break

Tuesday, July 15, 1997 | 11:06 a.m.

Wind and sunlight can help electrify homes in a pilot project included in several bills passed by the Nevada Legislature.

Part of the bill to deregulate monopoly utilities was a critical victory for renewable development in the state and sets incentives for homeowners and alternative energy companies to wean themselves off the traditional fossil fuels.

Sen. Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, and a board member of the Corporation for Solar Technology and Renewable Energy, sponsored Senate Bills 255 and 256, offering net metering and property tax incentives.

By net metering, a homeowner can invest in either solar or wind systems, install up to 10 kilowatts and then generate power. Power customers will remain hooked to the utility meter in case of stormy weather.

Titus said the day after Gov. Bob Miller signed the bill into law, the first customer who signed up for the program to install solar power in a new home came from northern Nevada.

"Everything we do helps solar power in the state," Titus said, noting that Nevada is the best sunshine collector of all 50 states. "If we can't do it, nobody can."

Rose McKinney-James, president and CEO of CSTRR, said while the pilot homeowner program for renewables is limited to 100 customers per utility, it gives flexibility to those willing to pioneer the new technology.

"This is the first time they've been able to do anything on their own," McKinney-James said.

While it will cost from $10,000 to $20,000 to install systems to gather the sun or the wind, the value comes over the time the consumer uses alternative power, she said.

"At some point, Nevada could become energy independent," McKinney-James said of developing solar generation and then attracting manufacturing and the accompanying jobs for renewable equipment.

In the debate over deregulation, Nevadans supporting alternative resources scored another victory in Assembly Bill 366, she said.

Any energy developed by utilities must use a percentage of renewables and 50 percent of that source must come from sunlight. In turn, utilities generating such alternatives can market them to other companies.

"It guarantees a market for us," McKinney-James said of CSTRR, the nonprofit corporation funded through the U.S. Department of Energy.

Nevada has the land to capture sunlight or wind and enough available sites for manufacturing solar collection cells or wind turbines, she said. Property taxes have also been suspended for developing solar projects.

"This is one of the hardest things I had to undertake to get the legislators to understand," McKinney-James said.

And customers seem more than willing to go green. Utility executives discovered 20 percent of their consumers are voluntarily paying up to 10 percent more for the cleaner sources of electricity in half a dozen pilot projects across the nation.

In addition, Nevada's Sens. Richard Bryan and Harry Reid, both Democrats, and Rep. John Ensign, R-Nev., along with state Consumer Advocate Fred Schmidt and former Consumer Advocate Jon Wellinghoff all supported the legislation, in addition to businesses and consumers.