by The
Sustainability Steward (JR)
On Saturday, October 6, I toured some of the homes here in
Plano on the annual DFW Solar Home Tour, sponsored by the American Solar Energy Society (ASES). This is the 17th year that ASES held a
national solar tour, with 14 homes in the Metroplex listed on the self-guided
tour. The City of Plano demonstrated its
leadership in sustainability with four homes on the tour, the most of any one
city in the area.
The homes on the tour were the Caldwell home at 3700 Hearst
Castle, the Elliot residence at 2401 Trellis Lane, the Neukranz house at 3309
Rampart in east Plano, and the home at 3325 Canoncita occupied by Bill and
Libby Perry. Although it was an overcast
day, it was a perfect way to visit with the homeowners and get their
perspective of having solar panels installed on their roofs and the electricity
savings that they are now seeing.
The first
home I visited was the residence of John Caldwell on Hearst Castle drive. John
is a fascinating individual, and not only discussed his solar energy system
with me, but shared his organic garden and his patented invention, the bicep
bike. He teaches a gardening class
through the Plano Parks and Recreation, while his bicep bike was recently
highlighted on Gear TV (as also shown on Youtube): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iAYvXPYrec
His solar array gives him approximately 25% of his
electricity needs, and on days that he is actually producing more than
consuming electricity, TXU credits him at $0.13 kWh for the energy he is
producing for the power grid.
The next stop on the tour was the Perry home on Canoncita. Not only do they have panels on the south facing side of their home, but on the west side as well, and as a result, are averaging about 50% of their annual electricity consumption with the solar cells installed on their roof.
Their system
has been installed for a year and is able to be monitored online in real time. The
Perry family was very open about the techniques they have adopted in water
conservation as well, and have one of the most environmentally friendly homes
I’ve encountered in our community.
The last
home visited was the Elliot home on Trellis drive. This, too, has optimized its
ability to collect energy from the sun with a nice array of south facing
panels. Panels are best positioned at a
33 degree angle facing the south, and a solar system of 4 kWh will typically
generate over 5,000 kWh of electricity a year in our area.
If you are
interested in learning more about solar energy in our community, please
consider joining the Plano Solar Advocates.
The Advocates have a goal to increase the installed base in the city of
Plano to 5MWp of solar capacity by 2015, or, approximately 1000 homes or business
sites with installed solar panels. More
information on the advocacy program and promoting Plano to become a leader in
solar energy capacity in Texas can be found at: http://planosolar.blogspot.com/.
