Springfield resident Larry Ricketts of North Fountain Blvd was always an enthusiastic environmentalist. So when he moved from California to Ohio, he checked into buying the best solar panels and found the process easier than he thought.
Ricketts' said he hired YellowLite to install the solar power system after conducting a thorough review of the Internet. He was impressed that YellowLite had glowing reviews without a single negative customer complaint after looking at sites such as the BBB and Angieslist.
Ricketts says he didn't much care what the price of the system was, he was more interested in the environmental impact. "My wife and I are both involved in environmental issues and more than anything else you have to lead by example." Said Ricketts. "It's one thing to talk about it, but we decided to go ahead and buy the system."
"In fact, when the guys came down to talk to us they were trying to tell me what the payback would be. The payback wasn't the main reason we were doing this. It was more to see how much CO2 we could prevent from going out into the atmosphere."
(Pictured: SMA inverter and electrical meter)
He also found that not only was financing his system easier than he expected, so was the permitting process. Yellowlite handled the permitting needed from the city as well as the interconnection agreement from his Utility company, Ohio Edison. YellowLite scheduled the inspections so that Mr. Ricketts did not necessarily have to even be home. He found that the solar panel costs were lower than he expected.
Ricketts' wound up installing a 4.4kW array with sixteen 275-watt panels from SolarWorld on the roof of his home. The roof mounting systems is from Ironridge and the inverter is an SMA model. In total, the system will produce enough power to offset around 50 percent of the household's needs. The expected amount of generated electricity is around 6,000 kWh, enough power to offset the burning of nearly 3 tons of coal per year.
Even though Ricketts' motivation was environmental, it should be noted his solar panels were eligible for a 30 percent federal tax credit, greatly reducing his overall cost.
YellowLite solar project manager Kevin Huryn said it was one of the easiest projects he had ever worked on. "We didn't run into any problems on this one," said Huryn. "Larry seemed like a really nice guy, down to earth, progressive. I enjoyed talking about environmental issues with him."
Panels are produced from silicon, glass, with an aluminum frame and have an expected life of 25 years.
The system passed its final electrical inspection and received approval from Ohio Edison before being approved. The system went operational May 6th. Larry Ricketts is a local environmentalist who has been interviewed by the Springfield News-Sun on multiple occasions. Currently he serves on the Financial Advisory committee to study the city's finances.
Solar installations in the United States recently passed one million installations. As of the end of 2015, installed solar panels exceeded 27.4 GW, enough to power 5.4 million American homes. Ohio solar panels are becoming far more common and Larry's house will one day be the norm instead of the exception. We encourage you to do what Larry did and look into getting into solar panels for your home.
(Pictured: YellowLite Salesman, Kevin Huryn)
