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THE 2015 WINNERS OF THE BATTERY, PLUG, FLAME GAME
The fourth grade, Ms Farris class, at Tobe Turpen Elementary shouted, "SOLAR!' as they received their plaque for naming the most everyday uses of electricity at Water and Energy Awareness Day 2015!
JUNE 2015
“Our Mission: Gallup Solar is collaborating with communities, elected representatives, utilities and industry to bring solar power
to all peoples in our area”
JUNE WEDNESDAY EVENINGS
MEETING AGENDA
This month
We will tailor our meetings to YOU who come:
Wanting to know how much solar you need,
What it will cost,
Where you can get it,
and
Why you should go solar....
Weekly Wednesday Meetings are from 6-8 p.m.
at 113 East Logan Ave., Gallup, NM
Refreshments are served
The public is welcome and all input is valued.
PLEASE COME!
June 3, 6-8pm
June 10, 6-8pm
June 17, 6-8pm
June 24, 6-8pm
GALLUP SOLAR BOARD MEETING
“TO LEASE
OR NOT TO LEASE....”
by Bill Bright, GS Board President
That is the question brought up at one of last month's Gallup Solar Community Meetings. We had discussed this option to enter into a low or no money down option to have a solar PV installed on your roof without the usual large upfront costs that is often a deal breaker when considering solar.
We had noted the start and growth of this financial option in other states and had mixed feeling about it. On the one hand, it would open the door to installs for many more households but somewhat like the predatory 'rent to own' industry the added interest and loss of state & federal credits, would cost the homeowners more to go solar in the long run.
Another draw back would be that these out of town (out of state) large corporations would be taking potential income & money away from local installers and our community.
Here's how it works: One of the larger solar corporations sends you a email ad offering a no money down, free solar PV install and promises that your monthly energy payments to them will be less than what you have been paying your utility company (usually 20% less) and at a fixed rate that will not rise for the pay back period (usually 30 years). No onerous permitting hassles and no maintenance issues.
At the end of the term you will own the system.
The trigger for this discussion was the news that Solar City had opened a branch office in Albuquerque, was hiring an initial 50 solar certified people and would be aggressively offering leasing around the state.
Our local engineering consultant, Ed Munoz, had heard that a number of our state's solar company's best employees were applying there and that this could put some companies
out of business.
But then it was reported that SolarCity was also doing simple financed installs instead. (stay tuned) In other words, helping homeowner own their own system via financing (Seeker get tax credits) instead of SolarCity leasing the roof
(SC gets the tax credits).
Wanting to test this all out myself, I applied online for a leased system. I got a call the next day from a sales rep. The sales pitch did not go that well. When I let him know that my utility was owned by the city itself and not PNM, El Paso Electric, etc., which they were in negotiations with, that was the first problem.
Then, when I reported that I usually paid less than $20 a month for power due to a number of energy saving efforts, that killed the deal. He actually said that they would only consider households using a minimum of $40 a month (this is not your total bill, just the electricity part).
So what would the City of Gallup do if pressured to permit a large number or even a single leasing install? We have an initial example in that Walmart had tried to lease a large PV array through a state solar company over a year ago. The application apparently died (for now) for lack of response by the City.
What could the city do to counter this potential loss of income from it's sale of power?
The city could do what some other progressive cities have done, go into the solar leasing business itself either by contracting with a local business or with it's own city employees, new
'green' local jobs!
But don't take my word for it. Go to http://www.solarcity.com/ Complete the simple interest form and see what happens. Please let us know how the sales call went at gallupsolar@gmail.com The more people who call from this area, the more likely this option may become available.
The Tesla Powerwall
Heralds the End
of Fossil Fueling
In Germany, next year, buying battery storage will be at parity with and heading below the cost of grid power. In many sunny US states parity can be expected in the
next five years. No more excuses that the sun went down.
But Gallup Solar won't be buying a Powerwall to store solar energy generated by our 1kw array. The micro inverters attached to each of our solar panels makes AC, Alternating Current, that matches the grid. Powerwalls get charged with DC, Direct Current, so If we were storing power we would have to remove the micro-inverters and buy a new inverter to put on the other side of the battery.
But that's just a boring detail..
So we 'll continue to use the coal-fired grid as a battery at night for a while.. 
Like this....until the prices go down, which they will..
© 2014 Germany Trade & Invest
High-tech battery storage is what some have been waiting for, to go completely off the grid and avoid that irritating $6.41 monthly service charge.
Like this!
© 2014 Germany Trade & Invest
The first adopters of high-tech battery storage, and there are other options, http://cleantechnica.com/2015/05/09/tesla-powerwall-powerblocks-per-kwh-lifetime-prices-vs-aquion-energy-eos-energy-imergy/ will do it not because it is cheaper but because it is greener and they can afford it. Their job is to bring the prices down.
So who stands to benefit immediately, financially,
besides Mother Earth?
A study was done by the Texas utility, Oncor, that found that installing utility scale battery storage would lower consumer electrical bills, reduce outages, reduce need to build added capacity, and reduce need to build additional transmission and distribution lines.
If utilities have battery backup there will be no stopping the renewable revolution!
The chart above shows that cost of 3MW of storage for every MW of generation, the red horizontal line, is below the cost of other itemized expenses.
Elon Musk when debuting the Tesla Powerwall only hinted at this much larger story.
It is a sensitive issue. Haha.
FOR MORE INFORMATION GO TO gallupsolar.org
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