A Kansas man on an environmental mission to generate his own energy instead feels powerless. Mike Alterbernd said he ran into obstacles when he wanted to install solar panels on the roof of his home in Kansas City, Kan. In addition to providing electricity for his home, the solar panels would have fed excess power to his power company, the Board of Public Utilities. The process is called parallel generation service. But it turns out the BPU isn’t equipped for that. “I find that in this county I can’t get parallel generation because we’re not set up for it. I made some calls to BPU, and they told me they’re not and had no plans in the future to do that,” Alterbernd told KMBC’s Maria Antonia. BPU’s Senior Electrical Engineer Bob Mullendore said the person Alterbernd talked to had another concept in mind. “Totally different issue than what he’s interested in,” Mullendore said. “All I wanted to do is put in solar paneling on my house. Economically it’s a good thing, and also it’s a good thing environmentally,” Alterbernd said. BPU said it’s working on an agreement for customers to use net metering, which allows them to get the value of the power their system produces. “There needs to be a net metering policy in effect. We’re preparing one now,” Mullendore said. “The option should be there,” Alterbernd said. “Five years from now, we’ll have no idea what energy will cost — it could be ridiculously high. So, having your own energy source would be the smart thing to do.” Kansas …

www.solardave.com SolarDave: How much paperwork happens before the installation begins on a solar installation? Eric Bowman: When you think about a project from beginning to end, beyond just getting the quote and the information to the client, once the agree to the project the process has a project management component, it has a Xcel rebate component, or who ever the utility maybe and they is definitely paperwork involved for submitting for the rebates. Managing the process, ordering the product, logistically getting it sent out to the location. We also have a set of drawings that need to be completed both structural as well as the electrical and those drawings have to get submitted to the utility and in to the jurisdiction for permittings, so there is actually a lot of activities that take place we have a team of engineers and project managers and local operations people taking care of each one of these. The final installation only take about one day.
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