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Going solar in Loudoun
While dealing with high gas prices, the rising cost of food and other ramifications of the slumping economy, Loudouners may not have much time to think about clean energy.
But there is one technology available that can help the environment while bringing energy costs down -- solar power.
“I believe all houses will be built that way in the future,” said Carter Morrow, owner of Bay Homes , a company that builds solar houses in Loudoun. “Energy is going to get a lot more expensive really quickly. In a few years, a lot of people will be buying 'hybrid' houses.”
Hybrid houses are powered by a blend of traditional and green energy sources.
Morrow has incorporated solar technology into his Round Hill home in the form of a solar water heater, which cost about $8,000.
As a result, all the hot water used by his family is heated by sunlight for free.
The state of Virginia is one of the worst in the country in terms of providing incentives, such as tax breaks, for those who go solar, Morrow said, but the technology has many benefits.
“A high-efficiency house is also a high-quality house,” he said. “You can't get away with cheap components.”
And of course there are the environmental reasons, he said, and the fact that in the future, the cost of fuel oil and electricity will likely be much higher.
In most areas of Loudoun County, solar panels are permitted, even in homeowners' associations -- Ashburn Farm, Cascades, Ashburn Village and CountrySide are just a few that allow the panels -- but there are a few communities where they are banned for aesthetic reasons.
Brambleton and South Riding are two of these communities.
“We're not anti-Earth by any means. It's a rule the developer put in initially,” said Richard Stone, general manager of the Brambleton HOA . “We have had a couple requests for them in the past, but it's never been appealed or taken to the next level.”
Wendy Taylor, manager of the South Riding community , said the HOA is looking into changing the rule to keep up with clean-energy trends.
Brambleton resident William Scott Gammans said the prohibition in Brambleton should also be repealed.
“In this era of rising global temperatures and skyrocketing energy bills, solar power has become more and more environmentally responsible as well as cost-effective for consumers,” he said. “Homeowners shouldn't be precluded from doing the right thing for Mother Earth and their pocketbooks.”
In Broadlands , solar panels are allowed as long as they fall under the accepted guidelines.
Homeowner Rich Bates has not yet taken advantage of the technology, but he has done some preliminary investigation into going solar.
“The entire back of my home is in sunshine,” he said. “The house is perfectly set up for it.”
Bates had envisioned producing enough solar energy to completely remove his home from the power grid while the sun was out, but when he checked into the cost, he wasn't sure it would be feasible. In all, it looked like Bates would be spending $40,000 to $50,000 to completely power his home with sunlight and install a battery backup system to switch back to electricity at night.
“My electric bill is only $150 a month,” he said. “For the short term, we'll probably just continue to do the little things we can do.”
Morrow said people are going to need to realize the benefits of solar outweigh the costs, and he said he believes in a few years more of the population will be ready to adopt solar technology.
“Most people are just not mentally there yet,” he said. “They aren't putting their money down on it yet.”
No matter how much it costs up front, solar energy does eventually pay for itself, Morrow said, whether it takes six, eight or 10 years.
Timothy Wyant of Bluemont has already installed solar power on his home.
“It runs all the basics of our house,” he said. “It pumps water from the well, provides heat, light, runs the refrigerator and runs a couple of computers.”
Tony Clifford, president of Standard Solar Inc. , based in Gaithersburg, Md., said his company has done a few installations in Loudoun County, but until Virginia comes up with more incentives for the average homeowner, going solar is just not worth it for most people.
“The people in Virginia now who go solar are concerned about something,” he said. “It's the same decision people made seven or eight years ago when they decided to buy hybrid cars.”
In Maryland, it is a different story. There, homeowners have incentives to install clean energy in their homes, and Gov. Martin O'Malley even signed into law an act banning the prohibition of solar panels by HOAs.
A similar law in Virginia would help homeowners like Jim Draheim, an architect who lives in Fairfax County, who wanted to install rooftop solar panels.
When Draheim looked into the process, he discovered the Burke Centre HOA prohibits solar panels because of how they look.
“As an architect, I agree that aesthetics are important, but there are ways to do solar that look nice,” Draheim said. “If we can't harvest this sunlight, it seems kind of silly, because down the line, these homes might lose their value. New communities with other energy sources might be taking over.”
Contact the reporter at ecoe@timespapers.com
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