Part II of Interview with Meridian Solar's President Andrew McCalla: "Saving Customers Money, Solartricity Program"

This is the second part of a three-part Q & A with Andrew McCalla, founder and president of Austin, Texas-based Meridian Solar. In this segment he talks about saving customers money, the Solartricity Program, and financing.

ROBERT GLUCK:  Meridian's solar installation at the St. Catherine of Siena Church in South Austin, Texas, was recently featured on Fox News. This installation was one of the largest solar panel arrays at a church in Texas.

The 3,000 square foot installation, funded by a parishioner who passed away, will provide electricity for about 46% of the administrative building which will save the church roughly $9,000 a year in energy costs. Explain to our readers how your solar installations save customers money.

ANDREW MCCALLA:  This installation, as with most, produces electricity on-site. That electricity offsets the electricity that the facility needs to purchase from the local electric utility company. This offset represents a savings to the church.

RG:  In May it was reported in the San Antonio Express News that Meridian is involved in the Solartricity program rolled out by CPS Energy. According to the Express News' Tracy Idell Hamilton, the program is "flipping the traditional energy model on its head, participants will install roof-mounted solar photovoltaic systems, then sell all the power they generate to CPS."

Please give us more details about Solartricity and tell us why Meridian got involved in the program.

AM:  This program is simply a distributed model of what CPS Energy, and indeed all retail utilities have been doing for decades: buying energy.

The twist is, of course, the highly distributed format, but this program is, in a way, a “mainstreaming” of solar into conventional energy purchase patterns. Some might argue that the premium valuation offered for the solar output keeps it out of the mainstream, and on a pedestal, but that would be to ignore the subsidies and incentives conventional energy receives.

RG:  As you know, financing is still one of the biggest barriers to solar investors. What is Meridian doing to educate local financial institutions in an effort to get them more comfortable with making loans for these types of projects?

We feel like we’ve spent a lot of time educating these institutions, as have others, and those efforts are paying off. Sophisticated investors and institutions understand the long-term, high-value proposition this technology can offer.

Image credit: St. Catherine of Siena Catholic Church

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