{a solar success story}
In 2003, elva gallagher, CPm, decided to solar power her
home. now, six years later, she couldn’t be more pleased
with the outcome.
after struggling to find a cost-effective way to power
her home in a rural, forested area, gallagher and her
husband started researching solar power. they quickly
learned solar panels are real estate tax exempt and they
could get a 70 percent state rebate along with some fed-
eral tax credits—not to mention the overall energy cost
savings and environmental benefits the system offered.
after plenty of research, they installed a 96-panel,
12-kilowatt pedestal system on their property.
Since adding this system, gallagher has seen an 85 to
95 percent reduction in her electric bills. Prior to using
solar power, gallagher used oil to heat her home, spend-
ing about $1,200 to $1,500 per year—and that was when
oil was about $.99 per gallon versus about $2.49 per gal-
lon today. She was also spending an additional $375 to
$400 a month on electricity. today, an average electric
bill is $150 to $200, and she no longer needs to heat her
home with oil.
finally, gallagher’s meter runs backward when there
is a surplus of energy and she is able to sell it back to
the electric company through solar renewable energy
certificates.
“that has helped us pay for the initial out-of-pocket
output on the system,” gallagher said. “as individual
homeowners and businesses create these generation
stations on their properties, the utilities can use that as
an offset for building plants. So they use us as part of
their team to tell the government, ‘look we’re increasing
our generation of electricity.’ and we get paid for that.”
By aDDIng Solar PanelS to her ProPerty, elva gallagher, CPm®, haS reDUCeD her eleCtrIC BIllS By 85 to 95 PerCent.
situation. On average, a break-even point of six to eight
years seems to make financial sense for many property
owners, said Ken Hawk, borough administrator for the
Borough of Stone Harbor, N.J.
“If you did solar and your break-even point is 25 years,
it isn’t worth doing,” Hawk said “There are just too many
things that can happen over those 25 years. But if it is six
or seven years, it is worth doing.”
While the upfront cost for installing a solar energy
system might be daunting, proponents said the energy
savings cannot be forgotten.
“The biggest advantage, obviously, is that energy from
the sun is free once you’ve installed the panels,” said Tim
Carey, director of sustainability at PepsiCo, which added
16 solar panels to its corporate headquarters in Chicago.
“Eventually, the cost of the panels is overcome by the
energy you have consumed.”
offSettIng UPfront CoStS
Building owners and managers can lessen the burden of
the upfront cost by being business savvy, though. The
Gasser Foundation estimates a five-year return on investment for its $1.5 million solar system.
To do this, the foundation renegotiated its tenants’
leases to include electricity charges based on each tenant’s
electric bill from the year prior to the solar installation.
The foundation added that cost into their tenants’ rent
instead of having tenants pay a monthly electric bill.
“There is no reason why a building owner should add
solar power unless they will get their money back and get
a return on it,” said Joseph Peatman, Gasser Foundation
president. “The economics have to work, and they don’t
work if you just pay for the system and then pass on the
savings to your tenants. Renegotiating the leases didn’t
bother our tenants at all…This is how we pay for the
system, and in the long run, this is how we will be more
competitive than other buildings.”
Properties can also actually profit from solar power
by creatively utilizing unused space. In North Carolina,
Machen said rooftops of mega office buildings and car-
ports can be leased to the energy company.
The energy company then pays for and installs all the
solar panels. The energy produced goes back into the
grid, which the energy company can sell. The owner of the
building or parking deck profits by leasing roof space to
the energy company without the upfront costs of install-
