You’re very observant. As system provider SolarCity’s Will Craven says, "consumer choices are driving the growth of a home-grown industry." Out of a market of 880,731 residential customers, NV Energy only has 6,593 who use rooftop-mounted solar panels. That’s a market-penetration rate of 0.0075 percent. Part of the problem may be that it’s not a global solution: Even with 20 acres of solar panels installed, Mandalay Bay can only draw a fraction of its power needs from solar, for example.
NV Energy, in its promotional literature, doesn’t try to sell solar as a cure-all. It writes, "Electricity generated by a solar system can be used to offset your energy consumption resulting in lower monthly power bills." In other words, you’re still going to be partly reliant on electricity or natural gas and you’ll be paying NV Energy to stay connected to the grid. Also, while overcast days are rare in Las Vegas, they still render your solar array useless.
On the downside, federal and local rebates for going solar are scheduled to sunset, if you’ll pardon the pun, by 2017. At least solar-panel costs are getting cheaper, so the free market may provide some financial relief. According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, you can’t go solar in any old house. North-facing roofs are out, as are "multiple peaks and triangles — a common design for modern, Southwest-style homes." If you’re thinking to compensate with a ground-mounted system, you’d better have a half-acre of land at your disposal.
There’s also a hefty upfront cost for installation, running into thousands of dollars – like 25 grand, baby. Even those federal and NV Energy rebates only cover 40 percent at best. Some companies get around this by leasing the solar array to you, in return for your tax credits and rebates, but that can be deal-breaker if and when you decide to sell your house. Also, it can take 20 years to recoup the cost, so in that respect you’re better off buying a system. Still, if you lease, "you save over a longer period of time, rather than outlaying a larger amount up-front and seeing more savings at the back end of the system’s life," counters SolarCity spokesman Jonathan Bass.
"The big advantage with solar is that the fuel source is free. Unlike natural gas or petroleum, the fuel falls from the sky. We just have to collect it." Bass adds. According to Forbes Magazine, "solar panels can decrease your household’s carbon footprint by an average of 35,180 pounds of carbon dioxide per year," the equivalent of planting 88 trees. You will, however, be seeing a few dollars more in your homeowners’ insurance premiums.
Ironically, NV Energy is opposed to the increased use of residential solar power, saying it transfers the financial burden to users who won’t or can’t make the change. It’s successfully fighting increases in the cap on net metering, a system that allows solar users to sell excess power back to the utility. NV Energy would like to impose a tariff on anyone who goes solar after its net-metering quota is exhausted. (The current cap is expected to be maxed out by early summer.) The utility is facing tough times, as several major industrial users – including Wynn Resorts – are seeking permission to buy energy on the open market and others turn to solar-driven Tesla Powerwall units for their energy needs.
The solar-power industry would like to see the net-metering cap -- $0.07 per kilowatt hour -- raised from three percent to 10 percent of overall usage, but NV Energy has the ear of the Nevada Legislature on this matter, arguing that each additional percentage point would pass $8 million in costs on to the consumer. At the same time, the state is facing a mandate to derive 25 percent of all power from renewable sources by 2025. To this end, the U.S. Interior Department has just green-lit three large-scale solar arrays, to be built on public lands by NV Energy, Invenergy, and First Solar.
University of California-Berkeley economist Severin Borenstein says this is the way to go. With residential installation, he told the Las Vegas Sun, "You lose the economies of scale. And the economies of scale are really large. The economics overall pretty clearly favor grid-scale generation, both wind and solar."
Coldwell Banker blogger Terri D’Richards contends that a permanent solar array will increase your home value by as much as $5,000. However, D’Richards also repeats some disputed assertions ("excess power produced by solar equipment actually causes your power meter to spin backwards!"), so take her advice with a grain of salt. Writes the R-J’s Jennifer Robison of some of the claims made by solar-selling hucksters, "Going solar isn’t ‘free,’ and it won’t ‘eliminate your power bill.’ Nor will your digital meter ever ‘spin backward.’" For those looking to do their own research, website solarpowerrocks.com/nevada offers a staggering array of facts and statistics on solar-power generation, including charts that allow you to do your own cost-benefit analysis of leasing or buying a solar system.
Now that you’ve heard the pros and cons, and still want to go solar, contact NV Energy, which can supply all the important information you need with which to shop for solar equipment. This is definitely not a fixer-upper project you do yourself. It’s best left to the professionals. Be a comparison shopper and if a provider makes claims that are too good to be true, they probably are. Good luck and shop wisely.
