Dow Jones News Wire
Alternative Power solutions President Ralph Parrot was recently interviewed, and featured in this Dow Jones News Wire Column
RENEWED ENERGY: Solar Power Proves Evasive For Sunny Houston
By Isabel Ordonez
A DOW JONES NEWSWIRES COLUMN
831 words
29 December 2009
14:00
NRG
English
(c) 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
HOUSTON (Dow Jones)–Houston, capital of the world’s fossil-fuel industry, has gone out of its way to embrace renewable power: The municipality buys a third of its power from wind-power sources, according to Mayor Bill White. But harnessing power from the sun is a much taller order.
Not that the fourth-largest city in the U.S. lacks sunlight: The sun’s relentless love every summer results in soaring air-conditioning bills for the city’s inhabitants. But solar energy remains far more expensive than conventional sources of energy–including wind. And the area’s excessively humid and muggy conditions make it difficult to capture sunshine for power.
“There so much humidity in Houston that light diffuses differently than in other parts of the country,” says Gavin Dillingham, director of special projects at the City of Houston. “We are trying to figure what works best in the city.”
Houston’s struggle to embrace solar power underscores one of the hurdles to the spread of renewable energy: The same formula isn’t applicable everywhere. Alternative sources of energy are highly dependent on local natural factors such as wind, sun, or the availability of hydro-power. Fossil fuels, on the other hand, are widely available and more economic but the emissions from their combustion are said to contribute significantly to global warming.
Solar-minded Houstonians have to rely on photovoltaic panels, which are groups of cells containing materials such as silicon that convert solar radiation into electricity, Dillingham said.
The city government is also experimenting with thin-film solar technology that can be rolled onto buildings’ roofs like wall paper, making it a lot easier to handle than traditional, bulky solar panels.
Houston is far behind its Texas neighbors Austin and San Antonio in offering rebates to citizens who want to use solar technologies because, unlike those cities, it doesn’t own utilities. Municipality-owned utility companies can afford to offer generous rebates for a technology that doesn’t make economic sense, while private companies don’t have that luxury, said Peter Bishop, associate professor of strategic foresight at the University of Houston.
High costs of installations are also a major hurdle, according to Steve Stelzer, program director for Houston’s green-building resource center.
“People in Houston like the idea of getting energy from the sun,” Stelzer said. “But when they find out how much it costs they say: ‘That is ridiculous’.”
Installing a solar system that will quench 30% of the energy needs of a three-bedroom house has a price tag of about $25,000, said Ralph Parrott, president of Alternative Power Solutions, a privately owned Houston-based company that provides residential and commercial solar-power systems.
However, Parrot said his business has grown steadily this year as people are taking advantage of the tax credit offered by the federal government for those willing to invest in renewable-energy projects. President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 aimed at jump-starting the struggling U.S. economy. According to the law, consumers who install solar-energy systems before the end of 2016 can receive a 30% tax credit.
The city government isn’t giving up. It expects that at least 5% of the municipality’s energy purchases by 2015 will come from state solar farms and it is planning in 2010 to unveil low-interest loans to residents who want to install solar systems in their homes. Four large facilities in Houston have solar systems, and the city is finalizing agreements with two solar-energy companies that would provide roughly the amount needed to power more than 7,000 homes, Dillingham said.
Solar energy is seen as especially appealing to Houston because it can help to reduce energy-price volatility. About 50% of the city’s electricity is generated by natural gas and, in the past, prices of this commodity have spiked higher when hurricanes hit production areas and pipelines in Texas, Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico.
(Isabel Ordonez covers U.S. integrated-oil companies for Dow Jones Newswires. She can be reached at 713-547-9207 or isabel.ordonez@dowjones.com)
