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HomeMy WebLinkAboutUndated - The Register Article Re: Solar PanelsYARMOUTH PORT Old inn, new tech Owner Arpad Voros on the root or ine via .a,111—•• R POWERS -SMITH PHOTO BY CONO Historic considerations no barrier to solar installations By Conor Powers -Smith csmith@wickedlocal.com he Old Yarmouth Inn on Route 6A in Yarmouth Port is one of the most historic businesses on the Cape. Established in 1696 as the midway point on the carriage route between Plymouth and Provinc- etown, the inn has hosted and fed generations of travelers. Unbeknownst to most visitors, though, the popular destination has increasingly embraced Only online Watch the video at wicked- localyarmouth.com energy efficiency in recent years, unobtrusively inte- grating new technologies into its historic setting. The latest and most ambi- tious project stands to generate a good percent- age of the inn's energy and save its owners a sub- stantial amount of money, without detracting from the building's centuries - old character. "I started shopping around a number of years ago, when it became evi- dent that electrical rates were going higher, to see how much we could save, said owner Arpad Voros, of the approximately 90 solar panels recently installed on two sections of the building's roof. "The tech- nology has improved." Over the years, Voros has installed heat pumps and LED lighting in his quest to get the most from his utility dollar. The Cape Light Compact, the regional organization ded- icated to assisting residents and businesses with energy efficiency projects, has helped both with planning and financ- ing, and Voros expects to get the group's help with his next project, upgrading the building's insulation. While top -of -the -line solar panels remain pro- hibitively expensive, second -tier technologies have become both more efficient and more afford- able in recent years, making the project not only feasible, but finan- cially attractive. Voros SEE SOLAR, Al2 SOLAR From Page Al estimated that his new arrays should generate 15 to 20 percent of the electricity required by the Old Yar- mouth Inn. Coupled with the solar renewable energy cer- tificates built into the deal, the panels should pay for their cost, about $85,000, in about four years, or less than a sixth of the expected life of the panels. "This is a system that will run 25 years," Voros said. "To be able to pay it back in four years, that's incredible. Anyone who's in business now who's able to do it, why wouldn't they?" Historic district considerations One factor that could be giving pause to some busi- nesses and residents is the emphasis many towns place on maintaining the charac- ter of historic buildings and neighborhoods. Voros was well aware of that consid- eration when tackling the project. "I told the Old Kings Highway Committee I would be the last person to denigrate the property," he said. "We didn't want it visible from the street. You have a 320-year-old prop- erty, and you want it to still be as charming from the street." The project was just the type likely to gain approval, said Richard Gegenwarth, Chairman of the OKHC. "The way they're doing it is in keeping with our objec- tive, so that when people are approaching the building, it still looks like the same building, you don't see a lot of solar panels," he said. "When you drive down the itreet, you want to have it still looking like it had been for the past hundred years." Gegenwarth said getting the necessary approvals for such projects is not as dif- ficult as some may think. "When it comes to solar panels, we haven't turned Owner Arpad Voros reviews the plans for the solar panel installation on the roof of the Old Yarmouth Inn. STAFF PHOTOS BY CONOR POWERS -SMITH much down at all;' he said. "I think we've only declined two. A couple of times we've had them make some modification." Integrating solar panels into a historic property can be as simple as hiding them. 'Along 6A, there was one a while back where they put them adjacent to the house, on stands' said Gegenwarth. "They were hidden from the street by shrubbery." Another proposal raised concerns that the panels, located on the back roof of a private home, would prove objectionable to neighbors. "We want to make sure that the installation is done so that everyone in the neigh- borhood is happy with it," said Gegenwarth. Again, the solution was as simple as landscaping. "It turned out that a few trees in the right place would really do a lot of good, so the neighbor in the back wouldn't suffer from having those solar panels" The balance between gener- ating the most possible energy and maintaining the character ofhistoricbuildings and areas can be more difficult, though. The Old Yarmouth Inn's panels were installed on two flat sections of roof, although some of the building's slanted sections would have made better locations. "Unfortunately, when you put solar panels flat on a roof, the efficiency goes down quite a bit, because they like to be at an angle that is in keeping with the latitude" said Gegen- warth, an engineer by trade. "Also, you should have them pointing solar south, where they can get maximum radia- tion throughout the year." "His back south -facing roof was absolutely the best, said Kevin Maloney, president of Picktricity, the Centerville - based solar company that planned and installed the project at the Old Yarmouth Inn. That area was not an option, though, since the panels would have been too noticeable. Another compro- mise was the use of slightly less efficient panels on one section of roof, because their design, coupled with their flat positioning, allowed them to blend more naturally into the building. "They have panels that they call black on black, said Maloney. "These panels have no silver stripes, no borders, nothing. They're 100 per- cent black. You can't even see them. They disappear right into the roof". Maloney said his company has become very experienced with such tricks, having installed solar panels in sev- eral historic neighborhoods. "There's a process, and we've been through enough of them at this point," he said. "The success we've had, we're like eight for eight or nine for nine, we're getting pretty good at it' The increasi4g efficiency and affordability of solar panels has made such Kevin Maloney, right, and Bob Dean, of Picktricity, which has become adept at matching solar projects with historic settings. Arpad Voros with the internal element of a high -efficiency heat pump disguised as a painting. compromise projects pos- sible. Maloney compares the present state of the technol- ogyto the world of computers, where good, effective options are drastically less expensive than top -of -the -line models that offer only marginal increases in power. "They're at the point where your three- foot -by -five-foot panels make you money," he said. "They're somewhere between your $500 laptops and your $10,000 computers" More and more busi- nesses and residents are investing in solar, including those in historic districts. "This past year we've had sort of a deluge," said Gre- genwarth. "I think in the first six months of this year we had something on the order of 20 projects, and last year we may have had 20 the whole year."