Local solar power related companies

Solar panels to provide electricity for a 3,000-square-foot house cost about $40,000.

For owners of existing homes, tax credits are available for qualified energy-saving improvements made through this month. They include up to $200 for windows, up to $500 for exterior doors, up to $500 for storm doors, up to $500 for insulation, $300 for air conditioning, $300 for air source heat pumps, $300 for geothermal heat pumps, $300 for water heaters, and up to $2,000 for solar panels that provide electricity.

But it takes time to recoup the costs of those improvements. Owners of existing homes must weigh the cost of green retrofitting versus the length of time for payback and how long they plan to be in the home.

University of Toledo physics professor Al Compaan went green via the sun. Three years ago, he put 96 solar panels on his home in Holland to test if northwest Ohio conditions could provide enough solar electricity for all a home’s needs. He’s had to pay about $100 a year to buy supplemental power.

He paid $43,000 for the solar panels, which, at 4,300 watts, make up an oversized system. He spent about $10 a watt, but most months pays nothing for electric generation. He does pay $8 a month in a state-mandated charge to fund utilities’ billing paperwork.

The Compaan home has 4.3 kW of grid-connected photovoltaic panels. The 96 solar panels (thin-film cadmium telluride) were manufactured in Perrysburg, OH, by First Solar. The DC power from the panels is converted to AC power by two Sunny Boy inverters. The roof has a nearly optimum pitch of 9/12 or 37 degrees from the horizontal and faces 8 degrees west of due south.

This rooftop array was designed to provide all the electrical energy needed by the house with enough left over to charge a batteryoperated electric pick-up truck that is used for commuting about 20 miles per day. Typically the panels feed excess power to the grid during the day and use much of that electricity at night when the lights are on and truck batteries are being charged.

This system takes advantage of the net metering regulations of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio which requires the utilities to pay small green-power producers the retail price for any electricity delivered to the grid. After about one year of experience, the array is providing all the electricity needs of the home and the electric truck.