On Saturday July 31st, the Residential Solar 101 team joined about 150 other volunteers for Grid Alternatives’ Solarthon 2010.  In the eight hours we were there, the teams worked to install solar panels on nine different houses in West Oakland. On average, each system was 2 kW in size. A total of 18 Kilowatts (kW) of solar generating capacity was installed on the nine houses. As a result of the installations, these nine households will collectively save an estimated $180,000 over the next 20 years!  If that’s not a great way to have an impact on a community, I don’t know what is.

Grid Alternatives is a non-profit organization that was started four years ago with a mission to install solar panels on low-income housing.  In their first year, Grid Alternatives completed just two installations. Since then they have expanded significantly, and four years down the road they just reached 500 installations.  A typical Grid Alternatives installation is 2kW, which means that as of July 2010 they have installed 1 Megawatt of solar power. Most importantly, this solar power is distributed throughout low-income housing developments across California. That’s a whole lot of solar energy!

Instead of just giving money to low-income families, Grid Alternatives installs solar power systems, which really are the gift that keeps on giving.  Day in and day out these solar panels will produce clean, renewable energy, which not only reduces the homeowners monthly electric bill (for the next 20-30 years), but also reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

In addition to helping the homeowners, Grid Alternatives provides an easy way for volunteers to gain experience installing solar. In some cases, volunteers have gone on to pursue careers as solar installers.

This was my third Grid Alternatives solar installation and I was more impressed than ever.  (My first was the Grid Alternatives Solarthon 2009).  The day started with a detailed safety talk before breaking up into our respective teams and heading off to start installing.  Each team had a team supervisor who worked for Grid Alternatives and two leaders (one for the roof and one for the ground) who either worked in the industry or had done a number of installations and had been through a leader training.  This year Residential Solar 101 joined the CleanTechies.com team – a great group of people interested in all things clean-tech.

The Clean Techies team installed a 2.7 kilowatt system consisting of twelve 230 watt ET Solar panels and a 2500 watt PV Powered grid-tied inverter.  Normally a system of this size would cost around $20,000 before solar rebates & incentives and about $12,000 after.  This family will get the system for free thanks to government incentives and the generosity of Grid Alternatives and their volunteers.  In return, the family will be required to take steps improve their home’s energy efficiency.

Volunteering for Grid Alternatives is a hands-on experience.  Normally, volunteers on a Grid Alternatives installation will be responsible for installing every part of the home solar power system, except any wiring in the circuit panel box (Only the Grid Alternatives employees (professional installers) do that for safety reasons). This work will take a team two days to complete. However, because the Solarthon is a one day event, some of the preparation had been done in the weeks prior. This included routing the conduit for the wires, and installing the rails (frame) on the roof.

Here’s a list of the tasks we completed:

• Mounted, hanged, and hooked up the inverter
• Prepped the frame on the roof
  
• Mounted & connected the solar panels on the roof
  
• Ran the wires from the roof to the inverter
• The the professionals finished up the final hook-up from the inverter to the circuit panel box.
  

Would I do it again?  Absolutely.  As I said, this is my third Grid Alternatives installation and I’ll definitely be back for more.  As the saying goes, give a man a fish and he’ll have dinner for one night.  Teach him to fish and he’ll have dinner for the rest of his life.  I think the same thing goes with energy.  Giving these families money to pay their energy bill is a one time fix.  Installing solar panels to supply them with free, clean energy for the next 30+ years is a smart long-term solution.

Related posts:

• Solarthon 2009 — Want to Learn How to Install Solar?
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It is that time of year again, the sun is shining and solar panels are soaking it up. And Grid Alternatives’ Solarthon on July 31st in the Bay Area is proving to be bigger and better than ever. Solarthon is a solar block party and fundraiser where GRID Alternatives Bay Area will be leading individual and corporate work crews to install solar panels for several low-income families in one neighborhood in one day.

CleanTechies will be organizing a team of around 15 volunteers to raise solar money to install solar panels. As part of the team you will set up a fundraising page (just click “join this team” to join now), and have friends and family help you achieve your goal of raising funds to help us reach $5,000 as a team. All proceeds will go to GRID Alternatives, a fabulous non-profit organization dedicated to bringing solar energy to low-income families.

What’s in for you? As part of the CleanTechies team, you will meet other solar professionals and fans, learn how to install solar panels, attend an orientation session, do good by installing a solar system on a low-income family’s house the day of Solarthon, and have a lot of fun . If you would like to join our team, please email me, and we will get you added to our team.

If you can’t make it on July 31, you can still get involved: Raise $250 to attend the orientation session – which is basically a one day all you need to know mandatory solar class –, then participate with the installation of solar panels on Habitat for Humanity homes. And, of course, you can simply donate now through our fundraising page – again, all proceeds go to GRID Alternatives.

Here are some pictures from last year’s event. You can see the CleanTechies Solarthon team, both on the roof installing the panels and on the ground checking out the inverter.

Related posts:

• Support Solar Energy, And Boost Your Company’s Awareness — Learn How
• Solarthon_2009
• Solarthon 2009 — Want to Learn How to Install Solar?
• Ever Installed Solar Panels? Bent Conduit? Mounted Inverters? It’s Fun!
• Grid Alternatives Solarthon 2010 – The Gift That Keeps On Giving

During the past weekend a team of CleanTechies made up of our staff members, friends and blog readers like yourself put our “Think Globally, Act Locally” philosophy into practice during Solarthon 2009. Our team of 15 people spent a partially rain-soaked Saturday to install a solar electric system on a low-income home in a Habitat for Humanity neighborhood located in Oakland, California. The team was organized by CleanTechies over the last month and its members were given the goal of raising almost $5,000 for the privilege of taking part in the event. All this effort was to support the ongoing efforts of a company we’ve raved about many times; GRID Alternatives.

GRID Alternatives is a non-profit organization making solar electric systems a reality for low-income homeowners who otherwise could not afford the systems. GRID does this through an innovative business model where they train volunteers to do everything from designing a system on a sheet of paper to mounting the final panel on a roof. With drastically reduced labor costs, a team of 10-15 volunteers can work slowly and steadily under the guidance of a GRID employee to deliver a complete system at almost half the cost of a typical solar system.

Solarthon 2009 was GRID Alternatives largest fundraiser of the year and their biggest event ever! Over the course of one day, three hundred volunteers, each of whom raised at least $250, got their hands dirty by installing solar electric systems on 16 homes in a Habitat for Humanity community which, when completed, will have 56 units. In total more than $100,000 was raised and we are proud to say that a founding member of CleanTechies, Ian Thomson, had the second largest amount of donations.

Our team sponsored one of the homes and worked alongside two volunteer solar professionals who gave us direction and made sure the work was done to professional standards. The future homeowner joined us also and worked on everything from mounting the inverter to bending conduit to running the wiring and clamping down the panels. She couldn’t have been more thrilled with the fanfare and excitement generated by the event and no doubt she was equally happy to know that her electric bills will be drastically reduced for the next several generations.

The system we installed was made up of an array of 9 solar panels. Each panel is rated at 230 watts meaning that the complete system (9 panels X 230 watts each) will generate 2.07Kilowatts (kw). This should support most or all of the energy needs of the homeowner since the home will also be outfitted with energy efficient appliances. Between solar, efficient appliances and proper energy efficiency measures, this home should have no problem receiving its LEED certification.

This event was a success for a number of reasons, not least of which is that it shows that even during tough economic times, there are many still willing to help one another and support the use of clean technologies to lower our carbon footprint. In fact, the systems installed during Solarthon 2009 will generate over $270,000 worth of clean, renewable power for low-income families over their lifespans while eliminating over 800 tons of greenhouse gas emissions. Reduced bills and less pollution? That is truly something to celebrate.

Some more pictures from the event:

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