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Harnessing the sun’s power – Utilities have $500 million to help pay for large alternative energy systems

PG&E is looking for a few good clients willing to split the cost of installing large alternative energy systems.

Tom Abate, Chronicle Staff Writer

The utility’s Self-Generation Incentive Program, which went into effect in 2001 and was recently extended by the state Legislature, is aimed at commercial firms or government organizations. The idea is to encourage rooftop solar systems that generate 30 kilowatts to 1.5 megawatts of power, as well as other alternative energy technologies (see http://www.pge.com/selfgen for details).

Pacific Gas & Electric spokesman Jason Alderman said the program requires the state’s publicly owned utilities to collectively put an additional $500 million into the extended program by 2008. So far, utility shareholders, rather than ratepayers or taxpayers, have funded the program, he said.

"At a time when every budget in California is getting butchered, there is $500 million … for solar energy,” Alderman said. "That’s huge.”

The PG&E effort is separate from but similar to a California Energy Commission program that offers rebates to help homeowners install small-scale alternative energy systems (see http://www.consumerenergycenter.com/erprebate).

The payback for businesses, organizations or individuals that make an initial investment in alternative energy — beyond the warm, fuzzy feeling of reducing the overall dependence on fossil fuels — is lower monthly electric bills.

Dan Shugar, president of Powerlight Corp., a Berkeley firm that installs rooftop solar systems, said the large arrays that qualify for the PG&E program range in price from $250,000 to $7 million. But monthly electric bill savings often allow large users to pay off non-rebated installation costs in four to eight years, he said.

Rooftop solar panels, which convert sunlight directly into electricity, are by far the most popular type of alternative energy system installed under the incentive program, according to Dean Heatherington, who manages the program for PG&E.

For instance, San Francisco’s Moscone Center is installing a rooftop solar array capable of generating 675 kilowatts of electricity. Ed Smeloff, assistant general manager for power policy with the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, said it will be the largest city-owned solar project in the world. The state-mandated subsidy that helped make it possible will have implications far beyond the Bay Area, he said.

"It sends a message to the solar industry that California is in this for the long haul,” Smeloff said.

Although solar panels are the most popular large system installed under the program, PG&E will also offer subsidies of varying degrees on other alternative energy technologies, such as turbines powered by waste heat from manufacturing processes.

PG&E’s Alderman said that since the commercial incentive program was initiated in 2001, the utility has helped start alternative energy projects capable of powering 65,000 homes — a drop in the bucket when it comes to the state’s overall energy demand, but a meaningful step toward decentralizing the energy-distribution system.

"When we look back in 10 years, we’ll say these programs made fundamental changes in the general energy picture,” he said.

E-mail Tom Abate at [email protected].

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/10/30/BUGGE2M7MG1.DTL&type=business

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