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On the Westside, latest fad under the sun is solar power
L.A. Department of Water and Power is inundated with requests about alternative energy in the wake of California's power crisis.
Ted Shaffrey
WESTSIDE WEEKLY
The nearly year-round Southern California sunshine couldn't get many Westside residents interested in solar power.
But the threat of dramatic price increases and rolling blackouts that have hit other parts of the state may have done the trick.
"About a month ago, we were getting one or two phone calls a day about solar power," said Angelina Galiteva, executive director of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.
"Now we're getting 100 to 150 a day. We've had to retrain our whole call center staff to respond to these questions."
A spokesman for Southern California Edison, the privately run utility that serves Beverly Hills, Culver City, Malibu, Santa Monica and West Hollywood, said the company has not documented a dramatic increase in calls about solar power. Edison, however, does not have an incentive plan like the DWP. The California Energy Commission is reporting a dramatic increase in calls about solar power, as are private installers of solar power equipment, such as Solar Electrical Systems in Thousand Oaks, which installs equipment on the Westside. "We're getting about eight calls a day for information," said company owner Greg Johansen.
FYI
PLUG INTO THE SUN
To find out more about solar power and programs to help install solar power in your home, call the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power at (800) 473-3652 or check http://www.greenla.com. The nonprofit Global Possibilites organization, founded by Casey Coates Danson of Brentwood to promote the use of solar energy, may be reached at (310) 656-1970 or http://www.globalpossibilites.org. |
The combined effects of energy deregulation and increasing power needs throughout California have pushed up the cost of wholesale electricity.
The state's biggest utilities, Pacific Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison, have been barred from increasing consumer rates, pushing those utilities to the brink of bankruptcy.
Residents throughout L.A., at least for the time being, are not being subjected to price increases or rolling blackouts because the DWP has not been affected by deregulation of the state's electricity market. Unlike much of the rest of the state, providing electricity in the city of Los Angeles is still a government run operation.
Although the National Weather Service reports that the sun shines about 75% of the year in Los Angeles, the DWP and Edison say very few-probably less than l00-Westside homeowners use solar power.
The state's recent power crisis, however, appears to have raised awareness about solar power among some local residents.
Johansen recently sold a 4-kilowatt solar system to Pacific Palisades resident Ed Amos, who is in the process of knocking down his old house to put up a new one.
Amos said he had been considering solar power, but what sealed the deal for him is the current energy crisis.
"It's nice to feel self-sufficient," he said. "The solar power is captured in a battery, so in a blackout we'll be the only house on the block with power."
Amos will pay $28,100 upfront for 56 mini-solar panels on the southern side of his roof, but will get back $18,900 under the DWP's rebate program for a final cost of $9,200.
" I think more people don't do it because of the upfront cost, the fact that it might take three or five years to make the money back in savings," Amos said. "But there's no real maintenance or cost after the installation."
In September, the DWP put into place a five-year incentive program in which it pays back on average about half of the installation cost-ranging from $8,000 to about $100,000-that a homeowner or business spends to put in solar panels.
The incentives are based on the number of watts the solar power system generates, rang ing from $3 to $5 per watt.
Solar power equipment manufacturing and installation is all done through private contractors, such as California Solar in Simi Valley.
In Venice, lifelong Westside resident and developer Jay Stark pays between $1 to $1.50 a day for electricity to power his new 2,800-square foot home.
Without solar power, Stark estimates that his electricity bill would be between $2 and $3 a day.
He installed solar panels for $8,000 but got back $4,000 from the DWP under the incentive program.
Stark positioned the 16 panels on the roof so they complement the architecture of his home while producing a total of 1.75 kilowatts of power.
"We love it," he said.
Stark was first enamored of solar power a few years ago when his Venice-based company, the Lee Group, took advantage of then-President Clinton's Partnership for Advancing Technology in Housing program to build a 77-home, low-income development in Sylmar.
Each home is 50% solar powered. Under the program, the federal government supplied Stark free consultation with architects and engineers.
On the Westside, other things besides homes are solar-powered-like the Ferris wheel on the Santa Monica Pier and the emergency call boxes along the Ballona Creek bike path and the Santa Monica Freeway, to name a few.
Pacific Palisades resident and former Hughes Aircraft engineer Ishaq Shahryar, was one of the innovators in the early l970s of earthbound applications for solar power, a technology that was originally developed for space flight.
"We've been trying for the last 30 years to popularize solar power," he said.
"It took the oil embargo in the early l970s" to spark the first wave of interest, he said, but that eventually died down.
Shahryar said he is now working with hair product entrepreneur and fellow Palisades resident John Paul DiJoria on solar panels that use glass instead of silicon as a base for the solar cells to sit in, which would make the panels significantly cheaper.
Los Angeles city officials are planning to equip all new libraries with solar panels, which contain photovoltaic cells that harness the sun's energy, like the ones just installed on the Los Angeles Convention Center.
And Miracle Mile resident Wally Marks III plans to convert his Helms Bakery building in Culver City into a solar powered facility.
"The energy crisis is a catalyst for solar power," said Galiteva of the DWP. "That's the silver lining in the dark cloud of deregulation."
She said the energy crisis is making people realize they don't want to be dependent on outside sources-sometimes out of the country-for power.
"We want to make Los Angeles a solar system," she said. "We have bad air and lots of sunshine. All the ingredients are here."
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