New Jersey Nightly News; A Closer Look: Solar Energy

The sun an inexhaustible source of energy sunlight is free but capturing it costs money. The sun can make consumers more independent of energy companies. And if we use enough solar can make the nation less dependent on foreign oil. In New Jersey that promise attracts energy planners and individual homeowners to the sun for a few. That promise has become reality. This solar house in Hopewell township Mercer County is a model of the latest practical solar technology. It was designed by Harrison Fraser an architect who specializes in energy conserving buildings. I can see passive solar heating really catching are a very big way here. The sun an inexhaustible source of energy sunlight is free but

capturing it cost money. The sun can make consumers more independent of energy companies. And if we use enough solar can make the nation less dependent on foreign oil. During the summer in New Jersey that promise attracts energy planners and individual homeowners to the sun like for a few like that promise has become reality. This solar house in Hopewell township Mercer County is a model of the latest practical solar technology. It was designed by Harrison Craker an architect who specializes in energy conserving buildings. The major summer heat collector in this building is the greenhouse itself which works like any normal greenhouse It collects lots of solar energy during the day. And the solar energy that isn't used to just keep the air up in here is stored in the masonry and the earth of the planting bed. And what happens is as the house needs heat the owners can open the windows up here and let the

heat rise up into the house and come back downstairs. So the whole system acts very naturally and slowly like a great big slow radiator. The hot water for the house is provided by solar collectors on the roof or collectors on the roof. A quarter comes from an electric water heater in a basement storage tank breaker believes the solar house will work so well that only a wood stove burning less than half a cord of wood will be needed for auxiliary heat during a normal winter. The house cost eighty thousand dollars to build and it could cost even less if developers reproduced it in large numbers. But you don't have to build a new house to enjoy some of the benefits of solar. A State Department of Energy grant program encourages solar hot water heating on existing homes. Thomas Cooper is one of the four hundred fifty New Jerseyans who got a $400 grant for a solar hot water heater he installed the unit on his 25 year old house.

The ground was not hard to get things ever went through. We should have made a plan. And we got some correspondence back we filled out a couple forms and I guess we're six months later we received a check for $400. Mr. Cooper's house has an electric hot water heater that's expensive to operate. Now his solar hot water heater and other conservation steps have cut his electric bill in half with tax credits and a grant for putting in the system. It reduced Mr. Cooper's cost to twelve hundred dollars. He figures the savings on his electric bill equal that in five or six years. Rob for us it's been great. And. Now I have to say the president's call up the other night I feel kind of proud of myself. That I did take a stab

at that as work. It saves money. Some people build solar because they think they'll save money but not everyone has that experience. Mr. JOHN MURRAY of cranberry didn't. I have two solar panels on the roof and a heat exchanger in the basement. The cost of this system was $2000 roughly speaking my savings over a year's period of operations with $61 in my gas bill during the two years Mr. Merry has had his system. Almost everything has gone wrong. He's repaired or installed a new pump heat exchanger flow valve and collectors only some of the expense was covered by warranty but he still thinks people should turn toward the sun. I think people want to do this but I don't and I don't think they want to go I know it. The idea that it's a panacea that is going to save them a lot of money. Solar hot water heater may or may not pay off for you. You need an unshaded place in your house or property to install a south facing solar collector. If your

water heater is powered by natural gas it will take a very long time to pay off the cost of a solar unit. Boil an electric water heating are considerably more expensive and the savings will mount up quicker. The cost of solar collectors is rising fast and now averages more than twenty five hundred dollars and you have to choose your contractor carefully. If you don't you can get burned. That's what happened to Dr. John Burke. Dr. Burke paid Marshall industries of about twenty eight hundred dollars for this system a martial industry salesman called on Dr. Burke. He's very enthusiastic. This would be all the hot water in the summer and a good percentage of it in the winter months. And I got the impression they were pushing things. And when we tried to get information such as itemized accounting of the bill. We didn't have any success. The system never worked after Dr. Burke complained. The state's Division of

Consumer Affairs took action against Marshall industries it's no longer in the solar business and has agreed to give Dr. Burke his money back. Adam Levin is the director of the Division of Consumer Affairs. It's very important to make sure that full disclosure. Those two words are the linchpin of any arrangement that you make and that you go slowly you know cautiously and at every step and try to get as much independent engineering advice as possible. The experience is not sour Dr. Burke on solar power. He's building a new system with the assistance of an independent professional engineer. So those I think a solar energy or power systems. How do you resist or in this case have install it. It is a simple principle I have learned a great deal. Many more people must go solar if Sun Power is really going to shine brightly in New Jersey according to President Carter's solar plan. New Jersey will have to install 42 new solar units a day every day for the next

five and a half years. We are far very far from that rig. The Department of Energy hasn't even been able to give away most of its solar grants. Solar power has not yet cut into our dependence on scarce fossil fuels. It's still more promise than performance but solar power works when it's used the right way. New Jersey's problem now is to get more people to see the light and plug it into the sun. I'm Tom O'Neil.