To The Reader’s Forum:

Fall is upon us with shorter days and cooler nights, a time when I reflect on another good year of harvesting sunshine. Two years after installing our rooftop solar in July of 2015 we’ve generated more electricity than we’ve used. I’m watching my electric meter spin backwards on these crisp autumn days and will have ‘banked’ over a megawatt hour by the end of October. I’ll start drawing upon that come December. Yes, solar works even in Jamestown.

Our rooftop provides all of our electricity and most of our heat. We have electric heat in the form of a heat pump with baseboard electric as a backup. We do pay for some electricity in early spring after we’ve used up the ‘banked’ sunshine from the summer. Including the monthly service charges our annual electric bill is less than $150.

Our natural gas usage averages 130 to 140 ccf annually or about $300 per year, and $200 of that is the monthly service charges. We have a small gas stove in the living room, mostly for ambience. Our only other natural gas appliance is a tankless water heater. Our total electric and natural gas bill for a two-story, two bedroom, 1000 sq. ft. comfortable home is less than $40 per month.

We realize that our house is not typical and that many people are not in a position to do what we did nor can they afford to do so. We purchased a 600 sq ft single story home which we eventually expanded to around 1000 sq ft by adding a 2nd story. The house faces due south with no shading so we purposely designed the second story for solar. We also replaced the windows with high-efficiency ones and before siding the house, we insulated well. Our construction expenses were not that out of line with a normal rehab or new construction. The solar array was an additional expense but considering that it will provide all of our electricity and most of our heat for at least, the next 20 years, it was a bargain.

Yes, there were subsidies and rebates for the solar array. The purpose of those rebates are to encourage early adopters, like us, to invest in the future; to prove that providing power, heat, and light with renewable energy is not only possible but practical and beneficial. As more renewables are sold the economies of scale will reduce costs and the rebates will disappear. Two years ago our system cost $3.75 per watt without rebates. The statewide average is now $2.85. A Solarize Chautauqua program about to be announced will bring that cost down to $2.50 per watt. The incentives and tax credits bring that down considerably.

We designed our array for the possibility of expansion to provide energy for an electric car. A third row of eight panels would produce enough energy annually for 10,000 miles of driving. Now that the Chevy Bolt and the Tesla Model 3 are affordable and have a range in excess of 200 miles, that third row is becoming very attractive.

Tom Meara

Jamestown