We are now into the fourth year since Lee Utterbach Inc. went solar powered.

Bay Localize was nice enough to do an article about our solar power system. You can read it by clicking on the link below.

http://www.baylocalize.org/webgallery/thumbnails.php?album=31

. The system of 76 Sharp 167 watt panels, 2 Sunny Boy 6000 inverters develops about 12 ½ KW was installed by Gaiam Energy Tech DBA Real Goods. It produces about 15,600 kWh per year; the system saves my company about $ 3,000 per year in electric costs. The array produces 1378 Kilowatt hours of electricity per month and prevents over 317,000 pounds of greenhouse gases (CO2, SO2, and NOx) over its lifetime. Since we are on the grid we do not use a battery backup. The goal is to reduce our dependence on the utility companies by 98%.

The total cost was about $ 90,000 with State rebates of roughly $ 31,000 bringing my out of pocket cost to around $ 49,000. In retrospect, I suppose I could have spent the money on more camera equipment but I thought at the time it was the more conscious thing to do. Now that we are in a recession and energy costs are on the rise it seems more and more like a good business decision.

If you click on the link below it will take you to a site that allows you to view in real time the energy that is being created at the solar grid on our roof top

http://view2.fatspaniel.net/PV2Web/merge?view=PV/simple/HostedEndUser&eid=102418

As far as we know we are the only film- and digital-rental house in the world using the sun’s power to run our business and charge all the batteries that run our cameras. Is there any one else out there?

Bay Localize was nice enough to do an article about our roof top garden. This album has many cool images of our garden on the roof of the rental house. You can read it by clicking on the link below.

http://www.baylocalize.org/webgallery/thumbnails.php?album=47

In June of this year, Marian Burros of the New York Times wrote an article titled “Urban Farming, a Bit Closer to the Sun” for the Dining and Wine section that featured our roof top garden. In order to read the article; click on the link below and go to the 2^nd page of the article.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/17/dining/17roof.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&ref=d

In addition 2 years ago I leased a GEM electric vehicle and sold my old Porsche Targa. I charge the GEM at night when the electricity is at the most reasonable rate to buy. The little GEM can go to the airport and back but don’t be in a hurry. I guess the days of my offering pickup and delivery from any stage in the city are over with this little GEM, but there are no stages left in the city.