By DAVID REAGOR
Los Alamos County Councilor

Solar energy is the only abundant energy source in Los Alamos County, with tens of Megawatts of potential solar energy in our residential areas. Yet, Los Alamos County has a very modest solar program. We have a solar facility at the old landfill and a few Megawatts of solar on residential properties. This is intentional as the rules for solar installations in Los Alamos are very restrictive.

The official county cap is to not go past 6 MW total in solar production and also limit individual homes to enough panels to match their needs. However, small solar systems are more costly per kilowatt. Allowing larger systems will let the homeowner have economy of scale with the controllers and inverters. Since the homeowner pays for the solar installation, it is just electrical generating capacity at zero capital cost for the county. Since local solar power improves both sustainability and self-sufficiency, why not promote it?

From a homeowners point of view home solar is a good investment. There is currently a 30% federal tax credit and a 10 % state tax credit. In addition, most home improvements add to the resale or appraisal value of the home. If a remodel is well designed with quality equipment one can recoup much of the investment when the property is sold or refinanced. Many potential home solar systems are possible in this attractive environment for the investment, but they still need to be reimbursed for their clean energy production at a financially viable rate.

The county practices net metering for home solar installations. This means that the excess energy the home solar system produces during the day is subtracted from the homeowners evening and night electrical power consumption. This is essentially paying the producer at the full retail rate. However, the neighbors in the town will pay the retail rate and then there is no surplus to maintain the power system. During the day LANL has an enormous and growing power consumption and can easily absorb tens of megawatts of solar generation. LANL pays the county at a lower rate than retail, essentially wholesale plus a small pass-through fee. This means that the county is losing money of every megawatt of local solar. Every solar panel added just puts the county in a bigger financial deficit that has to be made up somewhere else. The county managers and accountants then have good financial reasons to slow down solar installations. The same financial bind occurs all over the country and is widely acknowledged in other states.

The Los Alamos Board of Public Utilities has recently proposed a new payment system that essentially pays the solar producers at a wholesale rate. The will allow the Department of Public Utilities to recover enough money to pay their staff and replace equipment. This change will put a burden on the producers. I propose that the county should, at the same time, remove all the caps on the solar producers and let them scale up their home systems to produce more power. Let the solar enthusiasts power their neighbors and LANL with any system that the wiring can physically sustain. This will help the solar producing homeowners make up for the reduction in payments per kilowatt-hour and we end up with more electricity to meet our growing needs. It is a win-win for everyone.