Sun Block
Solar panels bring power, rebates to Seattle homeowners

By Cydney Gillis
Staff Reporter

The rebate check that Bob Allen and Lyle Rudensey got from Seattle City Light in October wasn’t a princely sum — just $350. But, to them, it marks the start of something big: More people making solar power.

Allen, Rudensey, and the roof of their house near Seattle’s Columbia City district are participants in a one-year-old state incentive program that’s paying them to generate solar energy.

The Legislature created the program in 2005 to encourage people to buy and install complete solar systems, including photovoltaic panels, an inverter, and a meter. The 2.1-kilowatt system atop Allen and Rudensey’s three-bedroom home includes 12 panels and cost about $15,000.

In return, City Light pays the domestic partners 15 cents for each kilowatt hour they produce, with the state reimbursing the utility. The $350 check that the two received in October was the rebate for the program’s first year, which ended June 30. It was part of more than $6,000 that Pamela Burton of Puget Sound Solar, a Seattle-based design and installation company that tracks the program, says the utility paid to 34 solar households.

At that rate, the nine-year rebate program won’t make up for the initial cost of purchase and installation, but Allen says it doesn’t matter. He and Rudensey bought the system in January 2005 before the rebate program started.

“It’s exciting to feel proactive,” Allen says of the environment and global warming. “In the absence of government action, it changes your whole attitude about what’s going on” in terms of what individuals can achieve.

“We’ve probably cut our electric use from the city about 50 percent,” Allen says. “Last summer, for July and August, we had a utility bill of $12.” That covered heat, appliances, and lights in an all-electric house of 1,700 square feet.

“I love it,” West Seattle resident Stephanie Brown says of her 18-panel system, which cost $16,500. “Number one, it makes me feel like I’m doing something,” she says. “Number two, it gives me a feeling of self-sufficiency.”

In the rebate program’s first year, Brown’s system generated 3,061 kilowatt hours. That’s an average of nine kilowatt hours a day, with the average home requiring about 25, according to Mike Nelson, manager of the Northwest Solar Energy Center in Seattle. The power also earned Brown a check for about $460.

Allen and Brown both took out home equity loans to pay for their solar systems and, at the same time, installed a solar hot water preheating tank, which also saves money.

Any unused electricity their systems generate goes into the grid. A companion bill passed by the Legislature in 2005 is also about to generate jobs: Thanks to reduced business and occupation taxes, Nelson says, two solar manufacturers plan to open plants in Washington state.

One, REC Silicon, plans to build a silicon purification factory in Moses Lake that will open in about two and a half years and employ 100 people, Nelson says. The other is an unnamed panel manufacturer that he says will employ 20 to 25 people in either Wenatchee or Everett.

Once solar manufacturers move in, the rebate for household power producers can go up. The rebate on a full system purchased from Washington manufacturers is 54 cents per kilowatt hour, but no one in the state makes the panels or inverters now — something the incentives are meant to change.

“I feel like it’s a really positive thing to be part of the solution,” Allen says. “It’s hard to quantify what that’s worth,” he adds, “but it makes taking out an equity loan a lot more palatable.”