Sunday, May 5, 2024
The Acton Nature Center will be “going solar” next month for its community lecture series on solar panels set for 2 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 7, 2024, at the Opal Durant Acton Community Center, 6430 Smoky Hill Ct.
Dave Moore, Texas master naturalist, will present the lecture as he talks about his own personal experience with being a new solar energy homeowner.
“I had been thinking about it for several years,” Moore told the HCN. “I’ve been looking at ways to reduce my carbon footprint, and I’ve been contemplating buying an electric vehicle, so I figured that would be a nice combination. If I had solar panels, I could use it to charge my electric vehicle, so I’ve been kind of bouncing around the idea for many years.”
Moore decided to finally bite the bullet last summer and had solar panels installed on the roof of his home in July.
He explained that the main point he wants to touch on in his lecture is for an individual to first figure out their motivation behind wanting to go solar, as their motivation can have “significant changes and hardware” involved.
“What's your objective?” Moore said. “Are you trying to reduce your electric bills? Are you trying to protect yourself from a grid outage? Are you contemplating buying an electric vehicle and want to use them to charge that? Are you trying to minimize your carbon footprint? A lot of those decisions come with increasing costs dependent upon what you're choosing.”
Once the motivation is determined, he said they can then move on to solar panel terminology and the various options available, from basic systems to off-the-grid operations.
Although getting solar panels installed is not the right move for everyone, many individuals seem to have the same question: Will it save money on electricity bills?
“It will (save money); it's just a question of when," Moore said. “And that's one of the things to consider because it's not necessarily a no-brainer to go to install solar just for the purposes of saving money because there's a pretty good upfront expense, and it may take several years to pay that off.”
Moore added that if someone is contemplating purchasing an electric vehicle — or they already own one — going solar could potentially help homeowners save money on any unnecessary charging costs.
"If they're careful about how they charge it with the home solar system, they can potentially avoid any kind of charging costs for the vehicle,” he explained. “Obviously, there's no gasoline involved, and they can charge the vehicle completely off their solar panels, which would potentially be a big cost saver, as well as really helping with our carbon footprint.”
Moore revealed there are also some “significant tax credits available” for solar homeowners.
“Thirty percent of the cost of your solar, you can offset with a reduced tax burden, so there are a lot of incentives out there right now from recent legislation,” he explained.
He added that during the lecture he will also discuss battery backup systems, how weather can affect solar energy, and some data from his “real-world experience” in his first-year operation with solar panels.
"Data from my first year's report from my system said the greenhouse gas emissions saved from my solar panels were the same as four passenger vehicles driven in one year,” Moore said. “That's also equivalent to carbon sequestered by 25 acres of forests in one year.”
Moore said his background in serving as engineering director and plant manager at the Comanche Peak Nuclear Power Plant in Glen Rose has helped in learning about solar energy, but the average homeowner does not need to be an engineer to get it installed in their home or to reap the potential benefits.
“One of the things I want to make sure people understand is this is not a sales job,” he added. “I'm not in the business of selling solar systems. I just thought if anybody's contemplating it or wants to learn a little bit more about it and see what the homeowners’ experience has been, that's what this is all about.”
Anyone not able to come to the lecture can register for the Zoom link by sending an email to actonnaturecenter@gmail.com.
