Despite all of the talk about solar power in Westchester, Fairfield and nearby areas and some action that includes using solar panels in new buildings and retrofitting panels into old structures, an analysis of government data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration reveals that New York state has generally ranked ninth in the country in solar generation in recent months, with Connecticut ranking 19th.
In New York state during August, solar panels generated 348,000 megawatt-hours (MWh) of electricity. A megawatt hour is 1 million watts of electricity generated for an hour, or enough to light 10,000 100-watt bulbs for that length of time. In Connecticut, it was 100 MWh. Top-ranked California generated 4,890 MWh of solar in August. At the bottom of the list was Alaska with 1 MWh, according to the analysis by Chooseenergy.com.
New York state has mandated achieving zero-carbon emissions in the state”™s electricity sector by 2040, including 70% renewable energy generation such as from solar and wind by 2030.
Another step toward that end was taken in Tarrytown on Nov. 10 with the unveiling of a solar generation site on the roof of the Tarrytown Self Storage building at 63 Cortlandt St., near the Metro-North Railroad tracks.
The rooftop system with 595 solar panels was installed by Briarcliff Manor-based Sunrise Solar Solutions and is expected to generate 257,100 kilowatt-hours per year, a kilowatt-hour being 1,000 watts of electricity generated for an hour.
The solar panels create direct current, or DC, like the electricity created by a battery, which then must be sent through an inverter that converts it into alternating current, AC, for use in the electric grid. Sunrise estimates that 50 homes could be powered by the Tarrytown system.
In a community solar system, the energy is fed into Con Edison”™s lines for distribution and the source can sell to end users the equivalent of what it feeds to Con Ed.
Paul Ferraro, president of Tarrytown Self Storage, told the Business Journal he”™s been so pleased with the way the Tarrytown project has gone they”™re going ahead with a second installation on their self-storage building in Yorktown Heights. The Yorktown Heights project is larger than the one in Tarrytown and is expected to generate about three times the electricity. Ferraro said there may be additional installations in the future.
“This is a win-win deal and not many deals are win-win,” Ferraro said. “We end up getting rental income from our roof, discounted electricity and help our neighbors. At first we were just looking to save money on our electric costs. Then, Sunrise made a presentation to use on how we can build a system that would not only offer discounted electricity to our building but to the community we serve.”
Ferraro said that right now customers on the site don”™t realize there is a solar system on the roof.
“We set aside a portion of the parking lot where they staged the work and their crew kept their work away from our customers,” Ferraro said.
“Typically for a business owner a roof is that thing that kept the rain and snow out and costs them money if it leaks,” Douglas Hertz, president and CEO of Sunrise Solar told the Business Journal.
“We want them to rethink that and consider their roof as an asset they can now use to generate money from. Whether it”™s putting a solar system on what they will own or whether they”™re going to partner with a solar developer or a third-party financier all of a sudden roofs become this additional asset.”
Hertz said there are a number of different models for putting together a solar package for a building.
“We”™re going to go into a whole lot of due diligence work when a potential customer would call up. We”™re going to look at the age and condition of their roof, what their plans are for the building, are they looking to flip the building in a certain number of years, are they for-profit, not-for-profit, what is their risk tolerance profile, things like that,” Hertz said. “It will help us come up with a series of options for them that will give them some choices on how to go forward.”
Hertz said that solar systems are expected to last for 25 years or more. He said they like to work with roofs that are relatively young and have a lot of life left or roofs that are at the end of their lives and where the solar system provides an impetus to do roof work that the customer has been putting off.
“It”™s the roofs right in the middle of their life span that are interesting,” Hertz said. “We can bring in an independent roof consultant and what we sometimes can do is some remedial work to extend the life of the roof.”
Hertz said that solar panels keep evolving but that the changes are incremental and the panels used today are just advanced versions of what NASA came up with in the 1950s.
“They”™re better manufactured. They”™re produced in clean rooms. They are more efficient, but they”™re not fundamentally different products,” Hertz said. “We”™ve gotten to that point in the manufacturing curve where if a manufacturer can eke out an extra 0.1% of efficiency there”™s a press release and a party. What have made significant strides in the last decade are the electronics that run the panels. Inverters that convert the DC from the panels into the AC we put onto the grid have gotten much, much better and more stable, cheaper, longer life spans so we get the maximum out of these systems.”
Hertz said there are monitoring devices so the company can keep track of how each system they”™ve installed is operating in real time. They also can remotely run diagnostics on the systems.
“That”™s a real boon for us because it means if a customer calls up and says, ”˜Hey, I”™m not sure if everything”™s working correctly,”™ we can just dial right in and find out if there is an issue. We often know what”™s wrong before we roll a truck. It makes it much easier to maintain a system over a longer period of time,” Hertz said.
Hertz said that solar has come a long way in the 12 years since Sunrise Solar Solutions started. He was in the business of renovating and restoring houses in Westchester with partner Eric Messer, a principal of Sunrise Building and Remodeling, and they thought it might be a good idea to place solar panels onto houses on which they were working. The fact that solar companies were few and far between back then encouraged them to look into the business.
“When we started the business we were dealing with the first solar system for this town and the first solar system for that town,” Hertz said. To date, they”™ve done about 1,000 installations on residential and commercial properties.
“In addition to Westchester, we”™re going to Orange County, we”™re going to Rockland, Putnam, Dutchess, Ulster, Long Island, northern New Jersey and nearby Connecticut,” Hertz said.
