Oregon Public Broadcasting

Without energy from the sun, life on earth would be impossible. Turning that energy into electricity is one of the keys to saving the earth, according to renewable power advocates.

In today’s edition of OPB’s energy series, “The Switch” , Rob Manning reports that if solar is going to take off in the Northwest, it will mean re-shaping our relationship with energy.

This is the sound of solar power.

It’s considered an intermittent resource, although one of the more predictable ones, since you know it produces electricity when the sun is up.

When you flip the switch, where does your power come from? And what will power Northwest homes and businesses in the future? We're asking these questions and more for our special series The Switch.

And solar is about as renewable as it gets – when the sun comes up, the rays get captured in panels and converted into energy.

Even factoring in the cost of producing the panels, solar energy is way cleaner than fossil fuels. And unlike wind -- which can kill birds -- or hydro -- which can kill fish -- there’s no known collateral damage from solar installations.

But right now, solar doesn’t even register as one of the seven biggest sources of electricity in Oregon.

Portland General Electric’s Mark Osborn.

Mark Osborn: “We’re continually looking in areas – some of the potentials might be near our Boardman power plant, because there’s transmission available in that area. The solar resource is a little better over there than it is on the west side of the Cascades.”

PGE's Pro Logis roof project

The closest thing to a solar power “plant” right now is PGE’s warehouse rooftop in Northeast Portland. It’s accessible only by a ladder.

Rob: “It's a nice view from up here.”

Mark Osborne:  “Oh yeah, a view of Mount Hood. Beautiful view of the Columbia River, on a beautiful sunny day like this, it’s a great place to hang out....”

PGE leases this roof from the multi-national corporation, Pro Logis. The technology is a little different, too. Rather than solar panels, the roof is carpeted with thin-film solar absorbers.

Mark Osborn: “You can walk on it, and that makes it very flexible, for doing work on a roof, you don’t have to walk around them.”

Osborn says upfront installation costs can make projects like the Pro Logis lease too expensive. He says PGE’s focus for now is to allow customers to get discounts on their power bills for solar they generate themselves.

Pat Schellerup and Heath Kearns are with “Mr. Sun Solar.” They’re looking over solar panels their company put on another roof in Northeast Portland.

Heath Kearns says these conventional photovoltaic solar panels will reduce the electricity bills of future tenants of this building.

Heath Kearns: “Along with the fact that it’s a very efficient building the way they’ve constructed it, it should cover about half the energy needs of the dwellings.”

Mr. Sun also installs another kind of solar -- called “solar thermal.”

Pat Schellerup: “We wish that people would recognize solar thermal more."

Mr. Sun general manager, Pat Schellerup says solar thermal focuses the sun’s rays to heat up water, for showers, or for your dishwasher.

Pat Schellerup: "When people hear the word ‘solar,’ they think of the nice shiny electric panels, and it’s just kind of what everybody commonly knows.”

But sales manager Heath Kerns says older solar thermal technology does a much better job of cutting hot water costs than newer photovoltaic solar panels.

The cost per kilowatt hour for solar in the Northwest ranges from a high of 21 cents for PV all the way down to 2 cents for the cheapest solar thermal.

Heath Kearns: “You know, this system, this single collector, with a 120 gallon tank down there, is going to produce 1900 kilowatt-hours a year. You know, that’s almost the same amount of energy that all nine of these panels are going to produce in a year.”

But Kearns says it’s gotten harder to sell people on solar thermal, since federal tax breaks equalized the cost of the two technologies.

But for a lot of people, all solar is still too expensive.

Mark Pengilly's Northwest Portland home

Mark Pengilly: “The roof surfaces that are most suitable are this one here, and then here on the south-facing covered porch. And together, I could get about four kilowatts, on those two surfaces.”

Mark Pengilly’s home is in the hills northwest of Portland, where he lives with his wife, and his Rottweiler.

Pengilly says he and a like-minded neighbor went to solar workshops with the intention of putting panels on both their roofs.

Mark Pengilly: “We invited three solar installers to come out and do bids, and when we looked at the bids, we decided that even though we’d really like to do this, it didn’t make financial sense, it didn’t pencil out, because it would be nearly 30 years before we'd get our money back.”

Pengilly says his system would have cost him $14,000 up front, and later, he’d get up to $10,000 of that back - over a few years - through tax incentives.

The last four grand he'd recover - very slowly - by cutting his electric bill by about $25 a month.

Mark Pengilly

Mark Pengilly: “In fact, one of the installers said to me ‘this was, essentially, a rich man’s game.’ If it’s only a rich man’s game, we aren’t going to be able to solve the global warming crisis. We need to have a solution that enables everybody to contribute to the solution.”

There’s a variety of ideas for changing the system -- like expanding leasing by utilities or third party companies. They’d make money by funding the upfront costs but reaping the long-term payback from solar. 

Pengilly likes the German model. In Germany, where solar power is expanding fastest, homeowners are guaranteed payment by the kilowatt for all the solar energy they produce.

Big industry players, like Boris Klebensberger, with the German panel maker, Solar World - like that model, too. At last year’s “ribbon cutting” for Solar World's big new plant in Hillsboro, Governor Ted Kulongoski and Senator Ron Wyden listened as Klebensberger emphasized that U.S. citizens should have a right to sell solar electricity. 

Boris Klebensberger: “It’s a civil right. You can carry weapons – fine. Not that I’m not worried, huh? But I would by far more appreciate if there was also the right for every American citizen to also plug his PV system into the system. And therefore help us and you, all of us together, to make the change.”

Utilities have raised questions about the concept known as feed-in tariffs.

The utilities wonder how they’d work, both financially, and from an operational standpoint.

Solar savvy homeowners like Mark Pengilly say the utilities are just reluctant to give up their monopoly on power production.

Vermont and the city of Gainesville, Florida, recently approved feed-in tariff policies.

The Oregon legislature is currently considering a five-year pilot program to try out the model.

[Editor's note: Some changes have been made to the text since this story was posted on-line, so that it more closely reflects the story that aired.]