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The Santa Barbara City Council on Tuesday held its fourth Solar Design Recognition Awards Ceremony at City Hall.
The program was established to promote a reduction in fossil fuel consumption, efficient use of energy resources and aesthetically integrated systems into building designs, according to a city staff report.
“It’s a wonderful activity to recognize those who are willing to reduce their use of fossil fuel and install solar energy systems,” Santa Barbara homeowner Robert Johnson said. “We have four systems in our home, and it’s great to open up that Edison bill and see $1.83 every month.”
There are three categories under active solar energy system projects, or photovoltaic and solar thermal systems: not publicly visible projects, design challenge publicly visible projects and special challenge projects.
Passive solar energy system awards recognized projects that met the guidelines in building siting, orientation, materials, construction techniques and landscaping.
On Tuesday, 97 projects received award certificates, and 11 of those 97 were awarded plaques for exemplary installations.
Dr. Robert Emmons, managing partner of investment partnership Emmons Capital, lives on Cima Linda Lane where he and his wife Christine have two systems installed.
Also honored were the 40 homes in the Las Barancas neighborhood — one of the first 100 percent solar neighborhoods in Santa Barbara County, according to Planet Solar Inc. CEO Ben Siebert said.
“It’s always good to bring everyone up to date to the fact that so many people are making substantial investments in solar and reducing our dependence on fossil fuels,” said Emmons, who saves about three-quarters of his monthly energy bill. “The thing that surprised me was the range of users that were at the ceremony — everyone from commercial, city, private residents and apartment complexes.”
More than 426 systems have been installed in the city, and 140 are pending installation. The city has installed 517 kW of solar installations on its own structures, including the Santa Barbara Airport quick turnaround facility and Fire Stations 1 and 2, according to the city staff report.
“It’s fantastic and rewarding to see more and more solar going up, and I know other municipalities are in the process of modeling over-the-counter permitting for solar,” said Megan Birney, a renewable energy expert for the Community Environmental Council. “In Santa Barbara, it takes an hour for solar permitting, and in other, let me say ‘jurisdictions’ it can take 132 days on average.”
See below for a complete list of award recipients.
— Noozhawk business writer Alex Kacik can be reached at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
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