Pioneer Press - SERIOUS ABOUT SOLAR
Pioneer Press story by Les Suzukamo
Excerpt:
No longer for tree-huggers only, solar energy systems are getting consideration from more homeowners and commercial users concerned about future high fuel costs.
Gary Mitchell uses solar energy to get his church into hot water.
No, not trouble. Hot water.
Mitchell is the business administrator for the 1,800-family Church of St. Joseph in Rosemount, and when it built an addition for its K-8 education program last year, the church went with a solar thermal water heating system along with a geothermal heat pump instead of the usual natural gas setup.
“Even though it cost a little more up front, the building committee was real determined to put in these systems,” Mitchell said. He said the committee wanted to make an environmental statement, but it also was looking several decades ahead at the possibility of rising fuel costs.
That kind of long-term thinking may signal that solar energy systems are no longer just the pet projects of tree-huggers.
Systems still cost more to install than conventional options, but the price of solar panels has started to drop, incentives are up and sunlight is, of course, free. So businesses, churches, schools and homeowners are giving solar energy a serious look lately.
Clean Energy Resource Teams