OUR VIEW: Rooftop systems would help
reduce California's dependence on fossil fuels. Can reaching back into the past help ensure
our planet's future?
A growing number of supporters of AB 1470
- the
solar water heater incentive bill - seem to think so.
Northern California Assemblyman Jared Huffman's bill, which promotes an
old technology through a surcharge on customer natural gas bills, is making a
strong comeback.
Huffman's measure may be the smartest bill on a 100-year-old
idea to ever come out of the state Assembly.
Huffman wants to install 250,000 rooftop solar water heating systems in
California in 10 years.
Normally, these cost homeowners between $4,000 and
$6,000 each and pay for themselves in lowered natural gas bills over 10 years.
The bill would use the state surcharge and previous federal dollars to rebate
homeowners, halving the cost.
The California Public Utilities Commission analysis put the surcharge at
13 cents a month per average homeowner. We can live with that, as would most
homeowners if it meant a step toward energy independence.
Not surprisingly, it is the natural gas companies - those who stand to
lose the most business - that are thwarting the bill's progress. Sempra Energy,
parent to Southern California Gas Co., is opposed. For that reason alone we can
support the bill. At the very least, it's an indication that Huffman may have
something.
What he's got is a new spin on an old idea. Solar water heating systems
are nothing new. They were invented in 1891 and by 1897, one-third of all
Pasadena homes heated their water using solar energy.
But just as the automobile and the freeways wiped out the Pacific Red
Cars, the discovery of cheap, natural gas wiped out solar water heaters by 1920.
Perhaps it is time for homeowners - in the name of a green Earth - to
turn back the clock, albeit with the government's help.
By using less natural gas, less nitrogen oxide is emitted, creating less
lung-irritating smog.
Also, using the sun's energy instead of burning natural
gas - a fossil fuel - will cut down on global warming emissions, a mandate
California is under since passage of AB 32.
However, a few other things must be strengthened if this is going to
work. The Department of Consumer Affairs must do a better job routing out
unscrupulous solar water heater installers. Shortly after the energy scare of
the late '70s, solar water heating became popular, but too many businesses
overcharged customers or didn't stand by their products and they lost favor with
homeowners. Second, there should be a marketing effort from a nonbiased source
to explain the program.
Done right, California homeowners (and small businesses) can harness the
state's greatest asset, the sun, much like residents of Hawaii, where an
incentive program has captured more than half of all solar water heating systems
in the country.
Huffman's measure, with legislative and the governor's approval, would
help put California back on the track of energy independence.
