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Columnists
Sustainability
and Sustainable Development
Nicholas
R. Hild, PhD Professor ASU
Polytechnic
Nicholas
R. Hild, PhD., Professor, Environmental Technology Management, Arizona
State University College of Technology and Innovation, has extensive
experience in Environmental Management in the southwestern U.S. Dr. Hild
can be reached at 480-727-1309 and by email at DrNick@asu.edu.
Targeting
Solar Incentives For Existing Arizona Businesses
Feb/Mar
2009
In
October of 2009, the U.S. House approved a bill that would create a Solar
Technology Roadmap, which lays out R&D needs for the next 15 years. It
would authorize $350 million initially and another $550 Million bump in
2015, presumably to be paid to contractors who will determine how the
nation will develop a solar industry to diversify our power sources with
clean sources of electricity.
Interestingly,
if you look at the ‘roadmap’ these politicians propose, it doesn’t
say anything about Solar Hot Water Systems which, studies are showing,
accounts for 12% to 18% of the total energy consumed by households across
the nation. Conservatively, then, let’s say that 15% of residential
energy is used to heat water—that’s a significant amount of btu’s,
fossil fuel, and carbon emissions that could be totally eliminated by the
simple use of SOLAR Hot Water systems—and it’s payback to homeowners
—(spell that, T-A-X-P-A-Y-E-R-S)—in real dollars actually going
back into homeowner’s pockets; it is not monies paid out to
manufacturers in the form of incentives or stimulus monies that never gets
paid back to taxpayers.
It
seems, however, Arizona politicians, Chambers’ of Commerce, and other
business organizations are looking for love in all the wrong places. In
their haste to attract ‘green’ industry to Arizona, they have entirely
overlooked opportunities right here in our own sun-baked, back yard to
jump-start the movement to make solar hot water systems (SHW) available to
every home owner and apartment complex in the state—a more efficient use
of incentive dollars with a much quicker pay back than giving tax
write-downs to out-of-state solar (PV and thermal) industries— that
won’t pay back for many years to come.
Thus,
there is a way to utilize all that solar radiation without mortgaging the
future with tax incentives: it is called SHW. And, there is
already a base for the SOLAR HOT WATER industry here just waiting to be
incentivized! Look no further than the existing HVAC, and plumbing and
piping, and swimming pool companies that are anxious to ‘tweak’ their
manufacturing capabilities to build and install solar hot water systems.
For
a much smaller incentive package than is being touted for PV Solar makers,
a dozen or more companies in a half dozen of Arizona’s largest cities
(metro-Phoenix, Tucson, Yuma, Flagstaff) that are already in the
HVAC and/or plumbing and/or pool business, could be provided with
‘incentive’ seed monies to purchase all the copper piping, structural
materials, and sheet metal required to build SHW systems, and the funding
to hire and train permanent skilled craftsmen to build, install, and
maintain SHW systems.
If
funding those Arizona businesses resulted in a couple of dozen jobs added
to each of those manufacturing companies in half a dozen cities, it would
result in sustainable economic growth that keeps spinning off other jobs
from the copper and sheet metal sectors while homeowners reap their energy
savings and their tax credits for installing solar hot water systems on
their residences.
Some
of those ‘incentive’ dollars could also fund SHW systems grants for
non-profit businesses to do the research to find the most efficient ways
to manufacture, assemble, and install SHW systems. In addition, those
dollars could provide for training to those businesses that need their
workers trained, by utilizing the non-profit companies to train the
skilled SHW systems craftsmen while allowing the manufacturing companies
to reap the benefits of the latest research to make those SHW systems more
efficient.
Solar
Hot Water systems may not be as sexy as Solar PV but we really should take
advantage of all the ways we can utilize our Arizona
sun—and that certainly includes the many environmental benefits those
include—so why are we not looking at SHW where saving 15% of the energy
used in households would have a direct impact on fossil fuels burned, the
state’s power industry’s carbon footprint and, homeowner’s too? And
all those small businesses would love to be provided with some of those
incentives our politicians want to give away— they will gladly retrain
their craftsmen and even hire more (yes, that means more jobs), if
they can just be included when politicians want to incentivize ‘green’
manufacturers.
In Arizona, there
have been no incentives aimed at our own home-grown businesses who
justifiably are asking why. With all the "incentives"
that both the Fed and States are likely to throw at the solar industry in
2010, the time is long overdue for our state and city politicians to look
at SHW incentives for Arizona businesses that will return real
dollars to homeowner-taxpayers, while growing the economy, and providing
real environmental benefits for our children’s, children’s, children.
2008/1234
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