Opinion
Portage County wants to go solar, but it’s still too expensive
We need incentives at the state and federal level to give our county sustainable energy — not corrupt handouts to coal.
By Mary Lang
Portage County residents continue to demonstrate an interest in renewable energy in the form of solar power in spite of statewide legislative setbacks for renewables over the past year.
According to the Portage County Building Department, residential rooftop solar installations within their jurisdiction (not including Kent, Ravenna and Aurora) grew from one installation in 2012 to a total of 67 in 2020 with a majority of that growth occurring in 2018–2020. These installations occurred in a wide range of locations in rural areas and townships including Atwater, Brimfield, Franklin Township, Hiram Mantua, Rootstown, Shalersville, Suffield and others. A few installations have been reported in the past two years by the city of Kent Building Department, including at least two commercial properties.
While the economics of installing solar have gotten better since 2012, because of the naturally declining price of solar modules and equipment, the expense for solar is still not within reach for the average citizen, and after installation it may take years to achieve economic benefits.
The Portage County Building Department reports that the range of solar installation costs over the past eight years, for the 67 installations they inspected, was approximately $10,000 to $80,000 depending on the size of the array. The ability for many people to afford renewable energy sources may also be influenced by the current national recession that we are in related to high unemployment and business closures from Covid-19.
Initially, the Ohio legislature supported renewable energy by developing an Alternative Energy Portfolio Standard in 2008 containing certain goals toward energy sustainability . This standard mandated that 25 percent of all kilowatt hours produced by investor-owned electric distribution companies must be generated from alternative energy resources by the year 2025, a move that would stimulate the future growth of alternative energy companies in the region.
However, the standard was short lived as the Republican-dominated legislature voted to freeze the targets in place three different times (2014, 2017 and 2018), even as many states in the nation were attempting to grow clean energy sources to mitigate the effects of global warming. Each time, the Energy Portfolio standard survived.
Finally, in July 2019, legislators passed HB 6 and Gov. Mike DeWine signed it into law, completely gutting the 2008 standards, removing state supports for renewable energy, in addition to charging taxpayers an extra tax on their energy bills, to subsidize two failing coal and nuclear plants in the state. Based on this legislative action, Ohio gained the reputation of being one of the most backward states in the nation regarding renewable energy adoption.
Against this backdrop, there were some early solar energy adopters in Portage County. In July 2012, the Kent State University field house was believed to be the largest array at any public university in Ohio at the time. In 2018, a few Kent residences and the Kent Housing Co-op installed rooftop panels on their houses.
In December 2018, several interested citizens formed a Portage County solar co-op in partnership with Solar United Neighbors (SUN) in an effort to harness group buying power for those individuals who were interested in installing rooftop solar panels and to take advantage of a 30 percent federal tax credit that will be gradually reduced as mandated by federal legislation passed by Republicans in the United States Congress under the Trump administration.
SUN, a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., provides support for the development of new energy systems in 13 states, including Ohio, and it primarily serves those interested in rooftop solar installations. The organization assists people who want to join together and go solar, and fight for their energy rights at no cost to the member. SUN handles the entire process of creating a solar co-op online for groups of interested individuals by setting up educational speaking sessions, collecting information from interested members online, putting out a request for proposals to reliable vendors in the region for specific co-ops and educating a small group from the working co-op to identify the most reliable vendor, based on criteria such as cost, warranties and previous experience, at no cost to the consumer.
The first Portage County Solar Co-op informational meeting presented by SUN in December 2018 had standing-room only, and the audience was composed of citizens and Portage County city officials demonstrating interest in solar among citizens of the county. Ultimately, 50 people signed up to join the co-op, resulting in 13 installations around the county in 2019.
There is an interest in Portage County cities to install solar panels for municipal buildings in Kent and Aurora in the future as well. The city of Kent is considering installing rooftop panels on the new administration building, said Melanie Baker, the Kent Service Director. The final project design has not yet been decided on or approved by city council.
Harry Stark, the Aurora Service Director, said Aurora is in the process of designing a solar array for the city’s water treatment plant based on a needs upgrade study that was performed three years ago, but nothing has been officially done to date.
It is difficult to evaluate the impact that HB 6 has had on solar growth in Portage County by gutting renewable energy standards. Ohioans have been without any robust solar incentives for several years now, and HB 6 indicates that there will be no state incentives for solar in the foreseeable future. While federal incentives exist, they too are shrinking, and both state and federal incentives are needed to boost the market for solar and make renewable energy more accessible to middle- and lower-income residents in Ohio.
The future of HB 6 is now uncertain as there is now a strong move afoot to urge legislators to repeal this bill given the criminal way in which it was passed, including the confusion created by communications surrounding the bill, sponsored by the Republicans who authored the bill, to make it appear that China was taking over as an energy supplier for the state.
Portage County interest in solar installations is slowly growing and there is something that citizens who support renewables can do to increase our ability to have clean energy in the future. As the election nears, individuals can research whether candidates you support are interested in repealing this bill.
Many powerful utilities rely on elected officials to support barriers to renewable sources as in the case of HB 6, even if it relies on breaking the law to create them.
Portage County residents interested in mitigating global warming through the use of sustainable energy sources and grow our region’s access to clean renewable power can tell their candidates that they don’t want them to accept donations from monopoly utilities and make sure they show up to vote in November to support candidates who are willing to move the county and state forward on sustainable energy for the future while protecting the environment.
Mary Lang is a Portager columnist writing about sustainability.
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