San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed had finally reached the pinnacle of power. As he balanced himself precariously on the southern slope of the roof at his home Wednesday, Reed carefully tightened a bolt on the last of 24 panels in a 4.2 kilowatt photovoltaic solar array. The mayor pronounced the moment “great.”
“Just like an Erector set,” he said of the reflective panels that would soon be converting sunshine into the reassuring hum of air conditioning. “This is going to make me feel a lot better about running it,” Reed added.
It was an electrifying moment for the power grid, and possibly for San Jose too, assuming the citizenry now rises to the rooftops in response to their mayor’s call to action.
Reed has seen the future through chlorophyll-colored glasses since setting forth his “Green Vision” for San Jose in 2007. That was the beginning of what a recent press release from the mayor’s office described as a “15-year comprehensible plan,” aimed at reducing the city’s use of nonrenewable energy to zero by 2022.
Still, it was bit disorienting — if not downright incomprehensible — to see Da Mayor up on Da Roof. Was he really reducing his carbon footprint up there, or imprinting it on that last solar panel, like some sunstruck movie star high-stepping through the wet cement at Grauman’s Chinese?
The system was installed in a day by Akeena Solar, and not because Reed was getting the Executive Special. The panels bolted together without wires — “Like Legos!” the mayor noted excitedly — forming their own elegant grid on the shingle roof.
“The paperwork and the bureaucratic stuff take longer than the installation,” said the city’s No. 1 Bureaucrat. “They’ve made it simple, quick and affordable, which is the key to getting solar on more rooftops.” The mayor paid $1,500 to San Francisco-based SunRun, which owns the rig, and he’ll make fixed payments to the company for the next 18 years.
Reed wants to create an “improvement district” that would allow residents to order solar from the city, then pay for it the way they do their sewer system now.
After Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed his Million Solar Roofs initiative in 2006, Reed told him to put San Jose down for 100,000. “We still have a few to go,” the mayor said. Then he brightened. As soon as Reed gets permission to turn on the solar system from PG&E, his meter will actually begin to move in reverse. “I’m looking forward to flipping the switch and watching that meter run backwards,” Reed said.
Contact Bruce Newman at 408-920-5004.
If you”re interested in having a solar system installed, information can be found at gosolarcalifornia.org/. Updates on the city”s progress toward mayor chuck reed”s “green vision” are available at sanjoseca.gov/greenvision/renewableenergy.asp.#.
