Solar growth potential sky-high

“I just want to say one word to you. Just one word.”

In the 1967 classic film “The Graduate” that one word was, of course, “plastics.”

Today, there”™s a different word: solar.

In a good year, the U.S. economy can be expected to grow between 3 and 4 percent.

In 2010, the solar industry grew by 67 percent, and in the past 12 months it expected to add some 20,000 jobs, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association, making it the fastest-growing sector of the U.S. economy by far last year.

Critics argue the industry”™s growth is due largely to government subsidies and tax credits, and point to the fact that solar energy remains the most expensive means of generating electricity.

Solar advocates and industry representatives counter that the price of solar energy has dropped drastically over the past several years due to those subsidies, and have urged state and federal government officials to give them more time to develop before pulling the plug on solar.

“Literally, the sky is the limit, pun absolutely intended,” said Shaun Chapman, director of East Coast campaigns for the Vote Solar Initiative, a national nonprofit that lobbies on the behalf of the solar industry.

In the New York state Assembly, the Solar Industry Development and Jobs Act was first submitted in February by Assemblyman Steven Engelbright, D-Setauket, however the bill was never voted on by the full Assembly due to an already packed agenda.

According to a memo attached to the bill, the program would have enabled the state to fulfill the goal set by Gov. Andrew Cuomo”™s Renewable Energy Task Force of the installation of 100 megawatts of solar by the end of 2011.

To be fair, the addition of 100 MW of solar PV installations would not have a drastic effect on New Yorkers”™ electricity bills. To put that number in perspective, the Indian Point nuclear power plant generates 2,000 MW and provides 25 percent of the power in New York City and Westchester County.

On the other hand, setting a goal of 100 MW of solar PV installations would be a major upgrade for New York, which as of 2010 had an installed capacity of just 12.01 MW, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, a project sponsored in part by the U.S. Department of Energy.

If any further motivation is needed, the U.S. Department of Energy has estimated that each MW of installed solar PV systems supports 32 jobs.

If this all sounds too good to be true, one need look no further than Westchester”™s own Mercury Solar Systems Inc.

Mercury Solar, based in Port Chester, was founded in 2006 with a grand total of two employees. At the time, it was the only solar business in the county, according to owner Jared Haines, president of Mercury Solar.

Today it has roughly 250 employees, has acquired branches in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York, and aimed to do $60 million in solar installations in the first half of 2011 alone.

“We”™re still in the infancy of this industry,” said Haines, adding the potential for the solar industry in New York ”“ where solar PV installations account for less than 1 percent of Westchester”™s energy consumption and less than 0.1 percent of the state”™s usage ”“ is unlimited.

Haines said the up-front cost of solar PV installations is down 40 percent since 2007, while the cost of electricity has risen 20 percent over the same period. He is positive there will be a day in the not-too-distant future when the cost of solar energy is equivalent to what the average person pays in electricity costs.

For now, with the help of government subsidies and tax credits, Haines said any homeowner looking to install a solar PV system can see a return on his investment in as few as five years with the help of a 30 percent federal tax credit for installations, a $1.75-per-watt-generated state tax rebate and an additional 25 percent after-rebate state income tax credit of up to $5,000.

Haines and Chapman said government officials, on the state and federal level, must continue to promote these subsidies until technological advances allow the cost of solar energy to level out.

“Until solar reaches great parity, which it will do, we need to continue rebates and tax credits,” Haines said.

It should be noted that while the state Assembly didn”™t make it to the proposed solar development and jobs act, it didn”™t entirely snub solar: a provision was included in the PowerNY Act that calls for a study of the state”™s solar market and what the addition of solar PV installations on a broad scale would mean for the state”™s economy and energy consumption to be completed by Jan. 1, 2012.

Chapman said that he is “extremely bullish” on solar becoming entrenched in the Northeast. His one question: “Is New York going to get on that bandwagon before or after it”™s too late?”