Do sun-powered homes sell faster in a slow market?

______________________________________________________

Click to see the latest on Kathy's Remodeling Blog

______________________________________________________

An article by Elizabeth Douglass in today's L.A. Times says buyers are seeking out solar-powered homes and solar industry officials say growth is going through the roof.

And it makes sense that when the housing economy is shaky homeowners are looking for stability. What could be more stable than the certainty that the sun is gonna shine? I don't mean to be glib, but the sun is one natural resource global warming is not going to destroy. Our self-destructive tendencies are powerful, to be sure, but our reach is not that great.

Still, only 5% of new homes in sunny California are built with solar. That is up from 1% in 2004, but well below the 50% the Million Solar Roofs program aims for by 2017.

If you're interested in solar power for your home (my new motto: Live the change), you can check out the Solar Power 2007 expo tonight from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the Long Beach Convention Center. It is free to the public this night only.

And here's another sign that solar is hot: The solar power show's conference sessions are sold out. But thanks to the miracle of the Internet, you can watch webcasts. Cable TV mogul Ted Turner is one of the keynote speakers. Click below to read the whole L.A. Times story.

(Photo: Orange county tract homes, by Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

With foreclosures rising and home prices diving, there is a bright spot in California's residential real estate market: Solar-powered homes are starting to outsell traditionally electrified new homes in several markets, and developers are stepping up their use of the technology.

Perhaps it's only fitting for a state that so openly celebrates its sunshine. Still, the growing popularity of household solar power is an encouraging sign for the thousands of solar enthusiasts and vendors gathering in Long Beach this week.

"Those builders are seeing that they'll get more buyers coming to their developments when they have solar. They sell like hot cakes," said Bernadette del Chiaro, energy specialist at the advocacy group Environment California.

Julie Blumden, a vice president at SunPower Corp., a San Jose-based manufacturer of solar roof tiles, said builders using solar were selling homes faster than nonsolar competitors -- an important factor in a slow market. "The increase in sales velocity is actually paying for the solar systems," she said.

SunPower, which sells its solar tiles to builders including Lennar Homes and Grupe Co., said it had orders to provide solar systems for 3,000 new homes in California in the coming years.

"The last time we saw interest in solar that was anything close to this was back in the 1980s, the first time there were federal tax credits for solar energy," said Julia Judd Hamm, executive director of the Solar Electric Power Assn. and co-chair of the Solar Power 2007 conference underway at the Long Beach Convention Center. "But the numbers then aren't even comparable to what we're seeing now."

Solar power is hotter than ever, helped by California's ambitious Million Solar Roofs rebate program, federal tax credits and growing public and political support for renewable power of all kinds. The U.S. solar industry saw record growth last year, with California the largest market by far, according to a study by the Prometheus Institute for Sustainable Development. And 2007 is shaping up to be another big year, industry officials say.

The boom also has swelled the community of solar products and pitchmen.

Both will be on display at the solar conference and expo, which is expected to draw more than 11,000 attendees in Long Beach, up from 8,500 at last year's event in San Jose, organizers say. Tonight, the show is free to the public from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

Exhibitors will be hawking photovoltaic solar panels in all forms, with some companies showing off systems that embed the technology in carports, roofing tiles and other structures. Some will be targeting individual homeowners, while others will be angling for business with utilities that want to boost their use of renewable power.

California's largest electric utilities, including Edison International's Southern California Edison Co., PG&E Corp.'s Pacific Gas & Electric Co. and Sempra Energy's San Diego Gas & Electric Co., have signed deals to build power-plant-sized solar facilities in and around the Mojave Desert or negotiated contracts with companies putting up such plants.

"Obviously, there are a nearly unlimited number of rooftops available in California and across the country" for individual solar power production, Hamm said. "At the same time, the whole concept of utility-scale plants is really just starting to gain momentum. So it's going to be a combination of the two."

California's $3.3-billion Million Solar Roofs program is based on the notion that businesses and homeowners would install solar systems faster if the cost was partially offset by rebates and incentives. The goal is to create 3,000 megawatts of new solar power in California by 2017 and to build solar power systems into half of all new homes by 2015.

"We were at 1% in 2004, and we're probably only at about 5% of all new homes right now," said Del Chiaro of Environment California. "It's good growth, but we're going to have to ramp up quite significantly to get to that 50% mark."

The solar power industry is drawing its share of star power.

Cable television mogul Ted Turner, who will deliver one of the keynote speeches launching the show today, teamed up this year with New Jersey solar developer Dome-Tech Solar to form a venture called DT Solar. Turner, chairman of Turner Enterprises Inc., said the renamed solar company would continue its focus on designing and installing large-scale projects and was expanding into California and other U.S. markets.

"Clean alternative energy is going to be a huge market because it's going to be done all over the world and it's got to be done right away. We're out of time," Turner said.

"Solar has probably the most potential because the sun is everywhere."

Hamm and others are encouraged by the explosion of start-up companies and new products in the solar industry, as well as by the technology's growing popularity with the public. But she knows solar is still a small fry in the electricity world.

"I don't think anybody in the solar industry thinks that solar is the answer and is eventually going to take over," she said. "Right now, solar electricity is about one-tenth to two-tenths of a percent of the entire U.S. energy mix. It's barely even a dot on the radar screen."

elizabeth.douglass@latimes.com

Comments

[Joan]

We are selling our home and nobody cares that it is solar. You can't even see the panels on our roof. It is dissapointing that with the cost of installing solar has not made a difference in selling our home.

[Rita Snyder]

We live in Texas, perfect for solar power. However, we are unable to locate reasonably priced installation and product. Any suggestions. Our state does not give credits or rebates.
Thank you, want to save the earth without bankrupting our family.

[sheila]

utility scale solar plants average 10,000 acres of wilderness-death for each one. many require natural gas be piped to the site, and enormous power line towers be extended from it, both greatly increasing the environmental harm.

The one currently under review at Ivanpah will suck 35 MILLION GALLONS of scarce desert groundwater EACH YEAR of it's 15-year lifespan (yes, all that ecosystem death for only 15 useful years), and the maximum output, including burning all that gas, will be 400MW. Add to that the TOXIC SLUDGE AND SALTS produced by the steam-powered turbines, and the enormous tax dollars flowing to Big Utilities when they could be flowing to homeowners like Rita, above, and we have a BIG FAT ENVIRONMENTAL DISASTER being GREENWASHED by Sierra Club, NRDC, Schwarzenegger, Villaraigosa and many others.

The desert is not some blighted wasteland like they try to depict. Think Joshua Tree National Park when you think about what is being dynamited, bulldozed, paved, killed and permanently lost as an ecosystem, because THAT, not some flat, dead, failed forest is what is being sacrificed at the latest altar of Big Energy Profits.

Time for Americans to wake up and INSIST that their government start investing in CLEAN energy which makes taxpayers money. State Assemblyman Huffman (San Rafael) is bringing legislation this week to demand 100% BUYBACKS (rather than crappy net metering) for ratepayers, which will meet our RPS, will save our wilderness, will pay down our systems super-fast and will stop the monopoly and manipulation of the centralized grid. i hope you will all support.