Most other solar installers can’t even qualify to be a traditional dealer for Sunpower, let alone reach the Elite Status. Sunpower is the most efficient PV product on the market and has a 25-year reputation to uphold. Only a company like Hudson Valley Clean Energy can be relied upon to support Sunpower.

This Elite status gives us the ability to offer our customers not only the greatest PV products on the market but at the most competitive price.

Hudson Highlands Properties installs PV

system on apartment complex’s roofs

It is the Village Green, after all

BY CHRIS MILLER

The installation of a 10kW photovoltaic(PV) system at the home of Hudson Highlands Properties CEO David Silver by Hudson Valley Clean Energy is all that was needed to set the stage for a series of renewable energy projects that would begin at the Village Green apartment buildings in Rhinebeck, NY.

“The orientation of the roofs at the Village Green happened to be perfect for solar panels,” explained Silver. “We decided to install the panels to provide all the common electric.”

Each tenant is still responsible for their own electric bill but the common lights in the hallway, the lights around the property, and the washer and drier room’s electricity is provided by the PV system. Providing power to those areas cost more than$26,000 annually before the installation and now Silver is looking forward to the arrival of his first zero balance bill from Central Hudson after energy back into their grid.

Silver, who has owned Village Green for approximately six years, decided the opportune time to install the PV system was immediately after improvements were made to the buildings.

“We had just redone all the roofs at Village Green so I knew it was a good time to install the panels,” he said. “I had just replaced all the sheathing and all the shingles so, structurally, I wouldn’t need work on the roof at any time in the near future.” Hudson Highland Properties initiated the job six months after deciding to implement PV panels on its apartment complex’s roofs and Hudson Valley Clean Energy (HVCE) began work on the installation immediately. Silver stated that working with HVCE has been a good experience; citing the quality, craftsmanship and the cleanliness of the installation.

Hudson Highlands Properties was able to obtain an accelerated depreciation due to having the PV installation on a commercial property. When he receives his grant from the government and all the numbers are tallied with the accelerated depreciation, the system and its installation will have a cost of $50,000. By the third year, money will be made from the investment.

Silver stated that the PV installation on the roof also removes any worry about increasing prices of that commodity used in the common areas that would be passed back to the tenants.“My philosophy is if I can save some money and pass it back to the tenants to make it more affordable so they will stay and I will have less vacancies – that’s a good investment,” he expressed. “There’s always a lot of maintenance in the apartment business. The great thing about a PV system is there’s no maintenance what-so-ever and it is immediately paying you back. When you go out on a nice sunny day and you see that meter going backward and you don’t have to do anything, that’s a good feeling. My yearly bills were $25,000and now they’re zero.”

The Hudson Highlands Properties CEO noted they are also looking to do something similar on their much larger Hudson View Park 550-unit apartment complex in Beacon and the new Rhinebeck Commons housing project near the Village Green.

“Rhinebeck Commons is already approved. Those houses will be, on average, about 2,500 square feet. Those seven houses will all be geothermal,” noted Silver. “We’ve been installing solar panels, geothermal, and foam insulation on the houses that we’re building because we think it’s just the responsible thing to do. As a small company we feel there’s no better way to change things than by just going ahead, getting started and doing it.”

The video hits YouTube today! Check out HVCE Office Manager Jacqi Anderson talk about renewable energy, solar power and spinning the meter backwards in Hudson Valley WOW TV’s Spring home and garden edition. Watch here!

The law goes into effect immediately, according to the Alliance for Clean Energy NY.

Hudson Valley Clean Energy is thrilled that non-residential customers can now take full advantage of net metering. We’d love to help your business get started. Call us today!

HVCE has been a leader of the solar energy revolution for nearly a decade, and we’ve been working hard to invite everyone we can to get on board and start saving money on their electric bills. Part of this effort includes our Solar Neighborhoods program, in which you and your entire community can reap the benefits of solar energy as a group. When purchased collectively as a “Solar Neighborhood,” we’ll take $500 off each system price for your friends and neighbors.

If you are an existing HVCE customer who would like to throw a Solar Neighborhoods party at your home, we’ll provide light refreshments and prepare a presentation for your guests explaining the benefits of joining a solar energy community. We’ll also give you $250 for every person that you recruit to join a Solar Neighborhood!

So go soak up some rays – you’ve been waiting for this all winter. And while you’re out, go knock on your neighbor’s door and tell them about HVCE’s Solar Neighborhoods program. We’d be glad to help you get started.

We are urging Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corporation to change their tariffs to allow PV system owners to change their “anniversary dates” with the utility. Currently, some customers are at an unfair disadvantage based on what month their solar systems were installed. We need your help in making this happen and TODAY is the last day!

One of the biggest financial benefits of a net-metered residential solar system is having the capability to accumulate “credits” for excess generation. Customers whose systems are turned on in the warmer spring and summer months are able to generate credits and then use them in the lower-producing winter months. However, having an anniversary date in the winter or fall often results in the customer not having any credits available in the winter, then accumulating credits in the summer which are zeroed out in the fall at a lower cost.

Investigation of Central Hudson’s tariffs does not reveal a passage which prohibits the changing of an anniversary date, but the utility continues to refuse to do so. It’s unfair that some customers are receiving better returns on their investments than others simply because they were lucky enough to have their systems installed in the spring.

We urge you to send a letter to the Public Service Commission so that all solar customers in the Hudson Valley receive a fair exchange on their electricity. In your letter, please reference Central Hudson rate case No. 09-E-0588. Address your letters to: Hon. Jaclyn A. Brilling, NYS Dept. of Public Service, 3 Empire State Plaza, Albany, NY 12223-1350. If you would like a template to use for your letter, please e-mail Lindsay at lindsay@hvce.com and we’d be more than happy to send you one.

Thanks for your help in addressing this important issue! Remember, this is the last day that the PSC will be receiving comments. Send in your letter now!

We got some great news here at Hudson Valley Clean Energy a few weeks ago. The New York State Senate and Assembly passed a bill on Feb. 21 which improves upon the state’s net metering laws, which were expanded in 2008 to include non-residential customers.

Net metering allows customers with renewable energy systems to sell excess power back to the utility company.

The amendment lifts restrictions contained in the language of the original bill which limited the amount of power that non-residential customers could net meter. Pending Governor Paterson’s signing of the bill, non-residential solar customers would now be able to net meter up to 2 megawatts of power.

To read the press release from the New York State Solar Energy Industry Association regarding the passing of this amendment, click here.