From Des Moines City View
Mother Earth: Ready for primetime
By Carolyn Szczepanski
carolyn@dmcityview.com

Rich Dana admits they basically threw the federal paperwork against the wall to see if it would stick. In fact, after the eastern Iowa coalition of private, public and environmental organizations put in their grant application to the U.S. Department of Energy, Dana completely forgot about the whole thing for months. But then he got a welcome surprise: that long-shot proposal for a little project in Iowa turned out to be the best idea in the entire country.

It's called the New Bohemia Solar Project, and, no, it's not a commune for barefoot, back-to-the-land advocates. It's a practical and political statement that proponents hope will jump start Iowa's solar power potential.

The way the project fell together "was sort of serendipitous," Dana explains. Dana, an independent energy consultant, was in the middle of transforming an ailing industrial area of Cedar Rapids into a vibrant community for artists, entrepreneurs and urban housing, when he ran into an energy analyst from the Department of Natural Resources who had an opportunity he thought Iowa would have to squander.

It was a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy for a solar-power project in a designated Brownfields - areas of expired industrial activity, where the EPA has determined redevelopment may be hampered by lingering pollution. As luck would have it, that corner of Cedar Rapids that Dana had gotten to know so well fit the bill perfectly. So, just for the heck of it, he ran the idea by the bureaucrats at the City of Cedar Rapids and officials at Alliant Energy and "lo and behold everyone thought it was a good idea, everyone decided to kick in."

Then, seemingly out of the blue, in September 2004, Dana found out the feds wanted to give them $65,000. Add to that the $75,000 pledged by local groups and suddenly the clouds parted for Iowa's largest solar project. Set to come online in less than a month, the eye-catching array of solar panels will produce 7,200 watts of electricity and act as a visual symbol that Iowa can handle technology just as well as it can harvest grain.

"It's tiny, it's so tiny," Dana says, comparing the project to endeavors in other states, "but it's just a start."

And, nobody disputes that Iowa is pretty much starting from scratch when it comes to solar power. That's not to say the bread basket is starving for sunlight, though. Quite the opposite, says Dave Evans, Solar Power Program Planner for the DNR.

"In terms of feasibility, we have as much sunlight as Hawaii does," he says. "But in Iowa we have no subsidies at all, and, as far as I know, it hasn't even been broached."

While politicians have felt the heat in states like California and Florida, enacting strong state incentives that make the still-pricey solar technology economically feasible, Iowa has stayed focused on renewables like biomass and wind, Evans says. In fact, while wind has gained some traction with power producers as a viable alternative, Evans says only one municipality - Muscatine Power and Light - has invested in a solar array as a means to green the public grid.

But if you think Iowans have given solar the cold shoulder, Dennis Pottratz, owner of Go Solar in Decorah, will set you straight. He's been installing solar electricity systems for small residential and commercial structures around the state for nearly a decade now. Sure, the biggest boon was in 1999 when people feared a power apocalypse when the clocks hit the year 2000, but even without that techno-scare, his business has seen consistent growth. One reason, he says, is that, even without the tax-incentive perks of other states, Iowa has some practical advantages.

Take the Ames couple he worked with last month, who have a recreational cabin just north of Nevada.

"All the negative economics change if you are a remote site," Pottratz explains. "With remote cabins, you'd be doing a disservice if didn't talk to me first, because you'd be spending a bunch of money bringing in power and then you'd have an electric bill, too. With a small, occasionally used cabin, you could get a [solar] system for $2-4,000 and the pay back is instant."

And renewable energy advocates hope the New Bohemia project will bring solar electricity out of its remote hiding. Although located in Cedar Rapids, organizers are asking residents from around the state to pitch in. This weekend and next, the Iowa Renewable Energy Association is hosting three-day workshops during which participants will not only learn the finer points of solar technology, but construct and install the very solar modules that will make up New Bohemia.

"And from there we hope to use it as a promotional vehicle to make our legislators aware that solar is ready for primetime, that there are real simple things we can do," Dana says. "Like wind power equipment is sales tax exempt, but solar equipment isn't. It'd be real simple for them to change that piece of code and make the average solar system $2,000 to $5,000 cheaper."

And to change policymakers' perceptions, Evans says organizers hand-delivered invitations to the likes of Gov. Vilsack and Iowa's congressional delegation to ensure they have "a laundry list of VIPS for the opening ceremony." Of course, the September 9 celebration is about more than wooing the politicians; it's about dropping the gauntlet, Dana adds. As it stands, Cedar Rapids is way ahead of Central Iowa in proving it's hip to the hottest technology trends, and Dana certainly wouldn't shy away from a little constructive competition.

"This serves as a challenge to everybody else to go bigger," he says.
Sounds like a challenge fit for a capital city. CV