Energy advocates work to meet solar challenge
Mystery company to bring plant to region if megawatt goal is met
Crain`s Cleveland Business
By Jay Miller
August 21, 2006
An out-of-state producer of solar cells has issued a `solar challenge` to Northeast Ohio by pledging to bring a solar cell-making plant to the area if local homeowners and businesses year install equipment capable of producing one megawatt of solar power.
And a local nonprofit organization is gearing up to meet the challenge.
Richard Stuebi, BP fellow for energy and environmental advancement at The Cleveland Foundation, said he arranged the challenge after a conversation with Holly Harlan, president Entrepreneurs for Sustainability, a nonprofit group that encourages the development of businesses that make products that use natural resources efficiently.
Ms. Harlan was looking for a tie-in to a solar power convention coming to town next year.
The idea for the challenge grew out of a conversation between Mr. Stuebi and the solar company`s president, who was visiting Cleveland. Mr. Stuebi said he was told, `If you for one megawatt a year (of power), we would set up a shop here.` Mr. Stuebi declined to say which company made the pledge to him.
The challenge is timed to culminate when the American Solar Energy Society opens its annual National Solar Conference in Cleveland July 8, 2007.
The target is to install photovoltaic (PV) panels, the mystery company`s specialty, that in the aggregate can produce one megawatt of electricity. PV panels use semiconductors directly into electricity, unlike solar thermal devices, which convert sunlight to hot water for heating.
This Thursday, Aug. 24, Entrepreneurs for Sustainability is holding a workshop to help firms and individuals learn how to integrate solar technologies into existing buildings and The presenters will include architects, solar power installers and financial advisers who can calculate the return on a solar energy investment.
William Spratley, executive director of Green Energy Ohio, a statewide nonprofit that promotes renewable energy, told a recent Entrepreneurs for Sustainability gathering that support the challenge as well.
Mr. Spratley said he is confident the challenge goal can be achieved.
Mr. Stuebi said The Cleveland Foundation would support the effort to identify good opportunities for the use of solar power and would encourage people and businesses to adopt he was careful to say the foundation had not made a specific commitment of grant dollars to the effort, Mr. Stuebi said the foundation would help establish the method for tracking power to know whether the goal is achieved.
Erika Weliczko, president of REpower Solutions LLC, a company that designs and installs solar and wind electrical systems, said installing one megawatt of photovoltaic cells was panels on 120 traditional homes.
A home system likely would cost $10,000 to $11,000 to install, Ms. Weliczko said, though federal tax credits and other financial incentives are available to reduce the net cost dollars. Payback would take 20 to 30 years.
Solar power is slowly gaining acceptance, though less so in the United States than elsewhere. Meeting the challenge, Mr. Stuebi said, would demonstrate to the unidentified company have a market in its own backyard for its solar panels should political conditions make selling in other parts of the world more difficult.
The federal Energy Information Administration estimates that in 2004 19 U.S. companies shipped 181 megawatts of photovoltaic cells. A majority of that production, 57%, was This Thursday`s Entrepreneurs for Sustainability workshop will be held from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. at the offices of Cleveland Electrical Joint Apprenticeship and Training Committee, Drive in Valley View.
Cost is $50 for members of the entrepreneurs group and of Green Energy Ohio and $60 for nonmembers. For more information, call 216-451-7755.
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