"Gators Go for World Championship With Record Prices for Solar Power" by Tom Rooney

In January we met Mr. Tom Rooney, CEO of SPG Solar. At the time, he was taking issue with some comments made by Bill O'Reilly and, in the process, shared his take on solar panels (you can read that article HERE).

Mr. Rooney recently returned from a trip to China and shares his thoughts about their solar energy efforts ... and the efforts of one, progressive city in the U.S.


Gators Go for World Championship With Record Prices for Solar Power

Something’s gotten into those Gators.

First, they won back to back championships in college basketball. Then they added a national football title to the mix, along with a Heisman trophy.

Now the city surrounding the University of Florida is doing something of even greater national import. Something that just might be remembered in 100 years as the place where America began its march to world energy leadership:

The Gainseville city leaders became the first in the country to set a competitive price for people who create renewable energy with their solar panels or wind farms or whatever, and who sell it back to the local utility.

They call it a feed-in tariff, if you must know the technical term. But it is simply the price you receive for generating your own power then selling it back to the utility.

Many solar leaders regard it as the key to the next step in the growth of solar in America -- both the use and manufacture.

Which is also the key to creating energy independence and reducing carbon.

Which of course we are not doing enough of.

On a recent trip to China, I visited several large factories where they make solar panels.

I wish everyone who wishes America to be an energy super power could have seen what I saw. These factories are world-class models of efficiency and skill. Their managers, many of whom are trained in the United States are very good and getting better.

Many of the panels they make are going to places where local utilities pay premium prices for solar power generated on rooftops; there is no doubt that wherever solar owners receive higher prices, more solar power exists.

In Germany and Spain and France and Italy, the feed-in tariff is as high as 72 cents per kilowatt hour. In Germany it is the highest, that is why they have more solar than anyone anywhere.

And most of this they did ten years ago.

In Gainseville, they recently set their price at 32 cents per kilowatt hour. Interest in solar in this college town is exploding far beyond what an economist might expect from the financial incentives alone.

Which tells us that people have important economic and non-economic reasons for using renewable energy.

If only they get the chance.

A competitive feed in tariff is just the beginning. The bigger the local market for solar, the greater the chance for local manufacturers to compete.

And that is what is missing in America so far. Missing from the plans of those who hope for tens of thousands of green jobs; Missing from the folks who crave energy independence. Missing from those who say solar is the cure for carbon.

But not missing in Gainseville -- where their 32 cent per kilowatt hour is a message to the rest of the country that this is what people do who are serious about energy independence and carbon reduction.

Compare that with California, the most solar friendly place in America, where solar power owners are lucky to get 1/3 of that.

There’s always a reason why we are not going whole hog on solar. The grid is not ready. The price is too high. We have more and better energy in -- fill in the blank -- that all we have to do to get it is -- fill in the blank.

But the blanks are always years and years and trillions of dollars away. Meanwhile, Asian suppliers and European competitors are racing ahead.

Today our national leaders correctly say that America can and should be a world power in renewable energy. But business leaders in Asia feel America will not get there.

If we are going to compete -- let alone win - for this world energy championship, we are going to have to act like winners. And we can begin by acting the way they do in the hometown of the national championship Gators.

I'd like to thank Mr. Rooney for that interesting and informative article.

As always, I would love to hear from you!

Guest Author ... Bill O'Reilly and Me, by Tom Rooney

When you want the facts on environmental issues, where do you go for information? The Internet ... the library ... television? Many people turn on "news" programs ... but these days, "news" programs are more about ratings and less about the facts.

I'd like to introduce you to Tom Rooney, CEO of SPG Solar. He recently took issue with the words of a popular television personality. His report shows us that we have to dig a little deeper than so-called "news" programs if we truly want to be informed consumers.


Bill O'Reilly and Me
By Tom Rooney

I’m not a Bill O’Reilly hater. Neither do I camp out in front of my television five nights a week to watch the world’s most dominant cable TV news host.

To steal a phrase from Bill O, himself: ‘I’m just one of the folks’ -- who happens to be the CEO of a large company that builds solar energy systems.

So it was with great interest when, in between talking football with one son, aviation with another, and getting my daughter squared away on college, and of course talking to my lovely bride, that I caught Bill O’s riff on solar energy.

“I’d like to put solar panels on my house,” said Bill O, the most dominant newscaster in the history of cable TV news. “And heat my house through the sun. I would like to do that for a reasonable amount of money. I don’t want to buy the oil every month. They can’t do it for a reasonable amount of money, number one.

“And its so complicated ... I can’t do it. ... So don’t tell me about my grandchildren. If they can figure out the solar panels, they can have them. But its all bunk. It’s all bull at this point for a guy like me. ...I want a clean planet. But I’d like the stuff to work.”

So there you have it: In the world according to cable news superstar Bill O, solar is too complicated and too expensive.

Bill O may have been living up to the old saying that ‘journalism is the art of speaking with absolute authority about something you know nothing about.” But in doing so, he also violated the top -- and probably only -- rule of journalism: If your mother says she loves you, check it out.’

He did not.

Here’s why: O’Reilly’s remarks came just a few hours after the Irvine Unified School District selected my company, SPG Solar of Novato, California, to install one of the most ambitious solar school projects in the country. With panels on 21 of its schools, the district will save at least $17 million over the life of the 20 year project; and will produce about half of its energy.

This will be an immediate 10 percent reduction in the district’s energy bills.

And ready for the best part, Bill O?

All at no cost to the district.

The financing is not complicated: The cost of buying and installing panels has come down so much, and incentives are so good, that the Irvine school district was able to finance this system through the savings it realized from going solar.

The building and operation is not complicated either. Not even for a Long Island mansion.

At least not compared to the solar energy system we installed at one of the great wineries of the world, Far Niente in Napa Valley. There we built the world’s first solar panels that float.

That may have been a challenge to build, but now that it is up and running, the only thing the winery operators have to do is sit back and watch the sun shine. When it doesn’t, the backup from the grid kicks in.

Without any assistance from anyone. It is seamless and automatic and not noticeable, Bill O.

SPG Solar also built five acres of solar panels at one of the most desolate -- and beautiful -- places in the world: The Furnace Creek Resort and Hotel in Death Valley, California.

But now that it is up and running, this solar system is generating power that could have come from a nuclear plant or a few thousands chipmunks on treadmills, for all guests know.

In Livermore, we built the world’s largest solar array ever put on a movie theater -- and all the time the patrons never knew we were there.

Bill O is a smart guy. No doubt about that. But some times even smart guys who don’t pay attention can be in the dark about America’s brightest technology, solar power.


I'd like to thank Mr. Rooney for that report. My personal feeling is that living a green life means that we take responsibility for making informed decisions. Becoming informed is not always easy. But we owe it to ourselves to search out all sides of an issue and listen to what everyone has to say. Mr. Rooney, of course, supports solar panels ... Mr. O'Reilly, it seems, does not. But hearing both sides helps us know the issue better.

As always ... I would love to hear from you!