Solar Homes in Old Mountain View

Today I interviewed Bonnie Prescop for the article I am writing for the Old Mountain View Neighbhorhood Newsletter about homes with solar PV systems. There are five in the immediate area of my home. On the way back from her house to mine, I dropped off about 10 fliers at homes in the neighbhorhood that looked like they had good, unshaded solar potential.

The article will be part of the March edition of the newsletter. My current draft is pasted below. I really like the quote from Terri Petersen that closes the article.

Living La Vida Solar

There are five homes between Castro and Calderon with solar electric systems. By interviewing the solar pioneers I learned that no two solar systems – or solar families – are alike.

The first couple in the neighborhood to go solar was Philippe Habib and Heidi Cartan. They live at 526 View, and Philippe installed the 2.5 kilowatt (kW) system in 2001, which provides much of the energy needed by their family of four. They have an excellent southern exposure, but the steep pitch of their roof made the installation a physical challenge. At one time they also owned an electric truck whose batteries they recharged at night.

Julie Lovins and Greg Fowler were the next family to go solar. They purchased their 2 kW, 12-panel system in Sept. 2003 from Akeena Solar and had it installed on their east-facing roof where it catches the morning, mid-day and early afternoon sun. Julie and Greg have found that the system provides nearly all the electricity their home needs, and their annual electricity bill has been reduced to slightly more than $5/month. They note that the growth of redwood trees in neighbors’ yards is decreasing the output of the system more each year.

Steven and Bonnie Prescop at 752 Calderon were the next family to go solar in November 2003 as part of a remodel that expanded their home from 1200 to 2200 sq. ft. Their 18-panel, 2.5 kW solar array is on the south side of their addition and is invisible from the street. Bonnie runs an in-home day care business that takes a lot of electricity. Even though they nearly doubled the size of their home, their electricity bill is about half of what it was prior to their $13,000 investment in solar electricity. Steve expects the system to pay for itself in 7-10 years.

The 2.5 kW system of Jordan and Wendy Dea-Mattson (311 Jessie Lane) is also quite hard to see from the street. They had it installed by Akeena in mid-2004. Looking to the future, Jordan is very enthusiastic about the cost reductions that will occur when Palo Alto-based Nanosolar brings its new manufacturing facility in San Jose on line late this year. Nanosolar has developed a semiconductor ink can be used to make a solar cell using a simple printing process. The ink is deposited on a flexible substrate and the nanocomponents in the ink align themselves properly via molecular self-assembly.

The newest, largest and most visible solar system in the neighborhood is at 541 Bush Street, near Mercy-Bush Park. This is the home of Tim and Terri Petersen and their two daughters. Their 4.4 kW system, installed by REgrid Power, became operational on Jan. 5 of this year. Thanks to a sunny January, it produced 474 kilowatt-hours in its first four weeks of operation. The Petersens have owned their home since 1999 and paid for their system by taking some cash out when they refinanced their home last summer. Tim says that he expects the system to reduce their PG&E bills by 80-85%. The initial idea for the solar system was Tim’s, and Terri was hesitant at first. However, as Terri said when I interviewed her, “We watched An Inconvenient Truth and I stopped arguing.”