Maybe you’ve dreamed about putting solar panels on your roof, but were put off by the high cost.
Now one New Hampshire utility is looking for ways to put those solar panels up for you.
New Hampshire Public Radio’s David Darman has more.
Unitil officials say they’ve thought of a few ways to generate power that don’t require building new power plants.
Aside from paying for residential solar panels, they’re also looking at placing small windmills on top of their utility poles.
Unitil Vice president George Gantz says the company has already tried it in Hampton.
It’s a residential size machine so the blades are six feet long. Its not a large thing like some of the controversy that people have been hearing about…and then the energy from the machine will actually offset the energy losses that occur naturally on our distribution system.
But before Unitil can make it’s ideas a reality, it needs state lawmakers to give it permission to do so.
The state’s deregulation laws say Unitil can operate as an electric distribution company, but not own any power plants.
Senator Martha Fuller Clark of Portsmouth chairs the Senate Energy, Environment and Economic Development Committee.
She says she’s intrigued by Unitil’s ideas and is ready to sponsor legislation to make them possible.
This really would allow for a public/private partnership to allow for very small, innovative programs to be able to go forward.
The Unitil proposals could be part of the way the utilities reach their quotas for renewable power under the state’s new Renewable Portfolio Standard.
That law requires utilities to get 25 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2025.
Other utilities are keeping an eye on how Unitil’s plans make out with lawmakers.
Public Service of New Hampshire has tried to convince lawmakers to let it expand its power production by building at least one 50 megawatt wood fired plant in the North Country.
But the efforts failed, because lawmakers said they wanted to give non regulated companies a chance to build the plants.
Martin Murray of PSNH says after those defeats, his company is eager to see what state lawmakers will do with Unitil’s proposals.
We’re going to have to frankly see kind of how it plays out and what the legislature really wants to do. How much do they want its regulated utilities, like the psnh’s …and like the unitils to be involved in the creation and perhaps some form of ownership of new sources of generation.
PSNH constructed its wood fired power plant on the Seacoast for about 70 million dollars.
The gas fired plant in Londonderry went up several years ago and cost more than four times as much.
Unitil’s cost for each residential solar array could easily cost the company 20,000 dollars.
But at that rate, Unitil could outfit some 14,000 homes with non-polluting, renewable energy.
If the program became popular, the utility’s bill could add up to hundreds of millions of dollars.
George Gantz of Unitil acknowledges that ratepayers would end up paying the bill for at least some of the company’s initiatives.
But Gantz says he see no better way to start complying with the state’s renewable portfolio law.
If we are serious about the 25 by 25 goal and I think most people in the state are serious about that, then we are going to need billions of dollars to be invested in a whole range of options and technologies, large scale projects, residential scale projects you know businesses investing, there’s just a whole range of things that are going to have to happen in order to reach that goal.
It will be a while before lawmakers have a chance to debate the merits of Unitil’s proposals.
Wording for a bill is still being developed.
And as lawmakers debate the pros and cons of the company’s proposals, that wording will likely change.
