Electric Co-op Today

A Nevada co-op has struck a deal with a major manufacturer of solar water heaters to purchase and install thousands of the units that consumer-members will then be able to buy at zero percent interest.

In October, Valley Electric Association, Pahrump, will start installing the first of 5,000 solar water heaters in consumer-members’ homes, the largest initial launch of its kind, according to Rheem Manufacturing Co., the co-op’s partner in the deal.

“In our research, no one has rolled out a program this large,” said Staci Behnke, the co-op’s community and governmental relations manager, who noted that renewable energy credits will provide financing. “Many utilities have just done pilot programs or in­stalled small quantities [of the heaters]. We’re going full force.”

One goal of the co-op’s Domestic Solar Water Program, which underwent an extensive grassroots approval process, is to help consumers cut energy costs—which the co-op estimated could be several hundred dollars annually.

Another is to put residents, hard hit by the recession, back to work as installers, said Thomas Husted, the co-op’s CEO.

The co-op will formally unveil the program at an Our Energy, Our Future symposium Sept. 5. But it gained some national exposure recently when the co-op was a vendor at Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s National Clean Energy Summit 2.0. The conference attracted some big names, including former president Bill Clinton, former vice president Al Gore, T. Boone Pickens and other energy experts and leaders.

Tags: Efficiency and Conservation, Local Initiatives, Solar Energy