Let the sun do it - Going solar saves more than money

Saturday, March 8
The Daily Hampshire Gazette

by Bob Flaherty

NORTHAMPTON - Harnessing the sun. Dee Boyle-Clapp and her husband, John Clapp, talked about it on their first date, back in October 1987.

'He was most interesting carpenter I'd ever met,' said Dee, a sculptor from Wisconsin who spent many of her formative years protesting nuclear power plants on Lake Michigan. 'He said he wanted the next house he built to be solar efficient.'

The couple has been married since 1989. The house John built for them on Chesterfield Road in 1999 gets its power from the sun. The Clapps are completely off the grid, not connected to any municipally produced power. They make their own.

The Clapps are among an estimated 1.2 million people in this country who use solar power to some extent in their homes. And, given ever-spiraling energy prices, there is greater interest than ever in finding alternative energy sources. Indeed, the January issue of Scientific American carries an article stating that a massive switch from coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear power plants to solar power could supply 69 percent of U.S. electricity and 35 percent of its total energy needs by 2050.

To make that a reality, a vast area of photovoltaic cells would have to be erected over 250,000 square miles of barren land in the Southwest. Though this bold plan would require huge federal subsidies over a 30-year period, advocates argue that it would eliminate all imported oil and cut U.S. trade deficits. Scientists say that the energy in sunlight striking the earth for 40 minutes is equivalent to global energy consumption for one year.

Locally, an increasing number of homes and businesses are now using solar power. Peggy MacLeod, marketing director for the Center for Ecological Technology, points to the Hilltown Community D evelopment Corporation's construction of 11 homes in Haydenville, all of them rigged for solar. Then there's the River Valley Market, A2Z Science and Nature, Wright Builders, Food Bank Farm in Hatfield, Hatfield Printing and Publishing and Shutesbury Elementary, all examples of people combining solar power with conventional power sources. There are also eight families at Pathways Cooperative Housing in Florence; MacLeod's is one.

'On a sunny day, with no one home, you produce excess energy,' said MacLeod. 'In that case, your electric meter spins in reverse. It's called net metering - you only have to pay for what you use directly from the grid.'

According to John Christo, of the state's Renewable Energy Trust, since 2005, 25 people or businesses in Northampton and 22 in Amherst have taken advantage of a state program offering rebates for installing solar panels.

Of the estimated 1.2 million people using solar power, a mere handful of those are what is known as 'off the grid' (as in electric grid), mostly in remote areas. Given that they are, well, off the grid a precise number is hard to pin down.

This is a story about one of those families.

The right spot

The solar house John Clapp always dreamed of sits on 65 acres of rolling pasture in Florence, about a quarter-mile in from Chesterfield Road. It's part of the 700-acre dairy farm and sawmill he grew up on. When his father died, the land was divided between John and his four sisters. John picked a spot and started building in 1998; he and Dee and their son, Jarred, moved into the house in 1999.

Photovoltaics, the technology of converting the sun's rays into electricity, is alive and well at this remote address. On the front side of the Clapps' two-story home are mounted 12 photovoltaic modules - in solar jargon this is called an array. They soak up sunshine and produce low-voltage DC electricity, which is sent through cables to a charge controller in the basement. That regulates the flow into the battery bank, where 20 deep-cycle marine-style lead acid batteries sit side by side in a 6-by-3-foot bin. The batteries supply electricity to a wall-mounted 'inverter,' which changes DC to 120 volt alternating current and then sends it to an AC circuit breaker. The inverter stays off until it senses a load, which can be as simple as using a toaster upstairs.

'Six hours of direct sun generates enough electricity, as long as you're conservative, to last three or four days,' said John Clapp, 59. 'With heavy use, it might only last a day.'

As a result, the Clapps carefully monitor what they use and communicate regularly. For example, if Dee and Jarred are using their computers at the same time, a large chunk of stored energy is swallowed up. Three or four days of cloudy conditions can make things dicey, which is why many people who use solar power opt to stay tied to the grid and only use it when necessary.

'If you're grid-tied, you don't have to worry,' said John. 'If it's cloudy for a few days, you simply flick a switch.'

But for folks untethered to the grid, nothing is quite that simple. If the batteries get low, the Clapps must fire up a generator in the basement. The generator is not cost efficient, is very loud, and is used only as a last resort. One of the mantras of off-the-gridders is to make it so you never have to use the generator. To do that requires a round-the-clock regimen of conservation, the use of compact fluorescent as light sources, energy-efficient windows, everything on a power strip and everything not in use, unplugged.

'Air-conditioning is out of the question,' said John. 'That's too much electricity. Fans do just fine.'

'If you want your favorite jeans in the dryer - this is not that kind of house,' said Dee, who is 48.

The family also makes practical use of 'passive' solar, where the sun's warmth, rather than be stored and converted, is used directly. Much like the hot water that burns you from a hose left out in the sun, one of the family's three hot water heating systems is directly solar. An old water tank, housed in plywood, sits under the glazing of a small greenhouse; hot water rises automatically, all gravity fed, through bendable copper tubing, into the house.

'The technology's been around forever,' said John. 'It's a panel and coil right out of Popular Science from the '70s.'

The family also gets tankless hot water on demand, triggered by a sensor hooked to a propane burner. The kitchen's refrigerator runs on propane from an underground tank.

Possible deterrents

Though photovoltaics is coming into its own as an independent energy source, it's not for everybody. It requires a level of commitment and discipline, as well as a significant cash outlay. It'll run about $10,000-$12,000 for batteries, PV panels and an inverter, with another $3,000-4,000 to install, unless you're a jack of many trades like John.

'You learn by doing on a farm, out of necessity,' he said. 'I figured out how to do things myself. When it came time to wire the photovaltaic system, it was second nature.'

The savings, compared to what you'd pay directly to the electric company, is nonexistent. It costs almost twice per kilowatt hour to produce electricity via photovoltaic panels and store it in the battery bank. Over time, as electric rates go up, the stabilized price of photovoltaic panels could catch up and draw even, according to advocates of solar power.

Initial savings tend to come into play for homes that are in remote areas - to tie into electric poles where the Clapps are would involve thousands of dollars to dig holes to run cables from the road to the house.

But this is not about saving money. This is about saving something else.

'The planet is in crisis, trying to shake us off like fleas,' said Boyle-Clapp. 'We may have no more than eight years to turn this around. The ice shelves are ready to go. This is today. It's not science fiction - this is really happening.'

'Potentially, this could get very bad,' said Clapp. 'We could be back in the Dark Ages.'

Clapp believes that the price of solar-powered systems will drop as people, wishing to rid themselves of their dependence on fossil fuels, start to embrace solar in greater numbers.

'There's increased production right now,' he said. 'It'll start costing less and less as more and more people jump on. Units will be mass produced. The price of oil will continue to go up, while this goes down. The next 50 years are going to be very telling - 40 percent of the houses going up in Europe are solar. There's going to be such a need for installers,' said John. 'We've got to get people to learn how to do it.'

Everything that John Clapp learned from building and maintaining his solar-powered home has gone into the construction of the house next door, a labor of love that he's building for his sister Miriam. 'This is the house of the future,' said John, who's increased the number of batteries in his sister's basement to 24 and has upgraded the technology, installing solar panels with greater wattage, and caulking every 'crack, cranny and gap.'

That land, and much of the original family land that surrounds it, is conservation restricted, protecting it from future development. Jarred, 14, represents the sixth generation to live on this land.

'I spent my youth logging and haying for my uncle and dad,' said John. 'I wanted to have the farm experience without the pressure of getting up and milking cows, which I never liked doing.'

The 25 cows that used to graze here have been replaced by four llamas, two emus, two goats, three peacocks, 15 guinea fowl and a charismatic miniature donkey named Pedro. Dee grows carrots, strawberries, basil and other crops, storing much of the harvest in the solar-powered freezer in the basement.

Three of the 13 rooms in the house are used for the Starlight Llama Bed & Breakfast, which the couple operates, interestingly enough, not as a strict money-making venture, but as a way to introduce guests to solar power. Its Web site claims Starlight Llama is the only 100 percent 'off the grid' bed-and-breakfast in the area, with guests sleeping under the roof of a solar-powered house.

'It gives them the experience of living with solar,' said Dee. 'Not everyone is going to retrofit their house - but this gives you some ideas. You don't have to go solar, but there's so many little things. You can still feel good about lessening your carbon footprint.'

In February Boyle-Clapp gave a presentation for Jarred's eighth-grade classmates at JFK Middle School.

'The basic point I try to make is that global warming and climate change is not your fault, but you must take steps to reverse it,' she said. 'And look at all the possibilities - this is exciting.'

Many of the kids had questions for Jarred afterward: 'You actually live like that - without any power?'

'They think we live in the dark, by candlelight,' laughed Jarred. 'After it gets dark, we just sleep like bats.'

Jarred, whose musical tastes run from jazz to Hendrix to Richie Havens to current favorites Operation Ivy and Rancid, won't whale on his electric guitar more than an hour at a time this time of year, with sunlight at a premium. 'I play the acoustic a bit more in the winter,' he said.

Growing up solar, as Jarred has, requires a built-in discipline that gets to be second nature. He says it's weird to visit friends' homes and see all the appliances plugged in and on. 'I'm like, 'Oh, you should turn that off.' Slightly kidding, but really meaning it.'