If you’ve ever thought about installing solar energy on your home, getting started is easier than ever.
Today, the city of Portland unveiled a new website where anyone can get answers to some basic questions about solar power. How much will it cost me? How much power will I get? Do any of my neighbors have solar power? And does this even work during Portland’s cloudy season?
To learn more, start by going to the Oregon Clean Energy Map.
A screenshot of the solar map of Portland. Red icons show residential projects, purple icons for businesses and green icons for government buildings.
It opens with a Google map view of the city. Scattered across the page are hundreds of little red, purple and green icons. Each one represents an existing solar energy project at a home, business, school or government building. Click on one of the icons and you get basic information about what type of solar project was installed, and who installed it.
Then it becomes a matter of zooming in to your neighborhood and finding out what solar installations are near your home. People are often surprised by how many of their neighbors already use solar energy.
Dave Herrmann is with CM2H HILL, the company which developed the Clean Energy Map for Portland. He says it’s often easier for people to go solar when they learn they’re not the first ones doing it. The map becomes a resource to help you find neighbors who already have solar and may be willing to share their experiences.
Type in your address to learn more about the solar potential of your home or business.
Next, go to the left side of the screen where you’ll find a search box. Type in your address and you’ll soon be taken to an aerial view of your home, and lots of information about its solar potential.
For example, I found out there’s about 265 square feet on my roof that’s prime territory for solar panels. That would produce about 2650 watts of power. After clicking the “Calculate your solar costs and incentives” link, there was an easy to use worksheet that said installing this kind of system would cost about $26,000 and provide about one-third of my annual electricity needs.
More importantly, the worksheet also tells me that state and federal tax breaks, plus rebates from the Oregon Energy Trust, will pay for about half the cost. Those incentives are a big reason why Lee Rahr of the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability says, “Now, is the time to go solar.” She says these incentives won’t last forever, and adding solar energy to your home may never be this inexpensive.
The Clean Energy Map was paid for by a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, which named Portland one of 25 “Solar America Cities.” Herrmann says there’s a perception that Portland, with its often cloudy skies, isn’t a good place to build solar power. But he says, “It’s sunnier than Germany, and Germany has more solar than any other country in the world.”
