Business Owner Offers Solar Learning Center

Written by Nancy Forrest

The company’s name emerged from Emrich’s fascination with hydroponics and he wanted to apply some of the same principles to the emerging solar industry. He said he formed the company so his children and grandchildren, and fellow Americans, would not be dependent on foreign governments for the majority of their energy sources. He also supports efforts to make 50 percent of homes in the state equipped with renewable energy, or Net Zero, by 2016. He said the Net Zero home is energy efficient with solar electricity. He noted that homes equipped with solar are selling more rapidly than those which are not.

“This is what interests me, where we are going to take this company,” he said. “We want to be growing toward a better way of life and an increased quality of life for ourselves and for our customers. Europe and Asia are absolutely leaving us behind right now, but we can do this as a nation…We don’t have to live this way. We can do better.”

Emrich, a Cal Poly graduate, began seeking solutions using renewable energy in 1973 while living in a remote mining town in Nevada, where the weather dipped to 28-degrees-below-zero, heating oil and food had to be delivered by trucks and were critical to survival while the United States was grappling with the effects of an energy shortage.
Today, California is the number-one state for solar energy and enjoys 330 days of sunlight each year. The solar energy generated in the state can be harnessed to do every-day tasks like heating water or generating solar electric power for household use, Emrich said. Surprisingly, New Jersey is ranked second in solar energy.

“Germany, which is not very sunny and has fewer sunny days each year than California, holds a huge portion of the solar energy market,” he said. “We should have solar panels on every roof because we  easily have twice the sunlight they do. Utility rates are high here. It would make sense to be equipped for solar. It’s a tremendous return on an investment. For someone who use less, they may see a 4 to 6 percent return, but a heavy user could see a 25 to 30 percent return. The sun comes up every day, and yet we keep paying the utility company more than we should. This is economics, plain and simple.”

In parts of the Middle East, for example, 80 percent of residences contain solar water heating but, in America, non-renewable energy is used to heat water. Saudi Arabia, for example, has sought out solar energy and desalination of water because it has finite resources of oil and water; when those resources run out, it will have to rely on renewable energy sources to sustain its society.
Emrich formerly worked for entities as diverse as the Lawrence Livermore Laboratories, the federal Environmental Protection Agency and Diablo Canyon and, with each post, learned more about the effects of finite resources of energy in contrast to the significant benefits of solar and other renewable sources of energy.  He said he wanted to find ways to use renewable energy sources while preventing damage to the environment and potentially dangerous emissions that cause health issues.
For the past 34 years, Emrich has lived in a solar-equipped house, he currently pays $6 per month for electricity and $4 per month for heating. His family members drive a hybrid SUV and two Priuses but anticipate purchasing a plug-in hybrid to further reduce their carbon footprint. He recently helped a local rancher reduce his utility bill from $2,000 to $100 per month for a 12,000 square foot home. He also equipped two wineries and a car wash with solar energy

“The more expensive, scarce or limited energy resources become, the more you want to save your resources and the more dear they become,” he said. “We don’t want the resources we have used up, so it is important that we do our ancestors a good turn and use technology that is as benign to the environment as possible. We know that wind blows at night and solar during the day. We have problems with technology that haven’t been solved yet, but this is a gold rush without mining gold… Solar energy offers the incentive to beat the system. How great is that?”
Emrich said the U.S. is falling behind the rest of the world in terms of renewable energy. “China has become a leader in wind generation even though it has only been in the industry for five years,” he said. “China also has 95 percent of the solar panel market. When I visited China two years ago, I also visited their famous smog. You could stare straight at the sun at one o’clock in the afternoon, and it wasn’t that bright.”
Emrich said whatever happens to the environment in China eventually impacts the United States and other parts of the world. He noted that Portugal leads the world with 45 percent of its energy usage renewable, while Germany relies on about 18 to 19 percent renewable energy. In just one quarter of the year, the United States is capable of generating the equivalent of half of Diablo Canyon’s output in three months using renewable solar energy.

The average cost of equipping an urban home with a 2 to 2.5-kilowatt solar energy system is about $10,000, while a home in a rural area would likely use a 4 to 5 kilowatt system. “The U.S. market is strong but it has nowhere near the market penetration it should have,” he said. “That’s very frustrating for me and for many people in the solar industry and for those who are committed to improving the environment. Our customers are largely upper middle class to extremely wealthy.  The capital simply isn’t there, and the banking industry is very tight. Many commercial businesses lease products or purchase them with cash, but financing isn’t generally available for equipping for solar energy. It’s frustrating because, as a nation, we don’t always look to the future and act accordingly. We should all be seeking ways to reduce CO-2 emissions and temperatures so that we can live a cleaner, healthier life and have a cleaner planet. I want to help make people aware that there are better ways to do this. It’s not cheap, but quality of life is the big payoff and you can save energy.”

He said because property values are upside down right now, banks are reserving the money they have in case of future loan failures. The bailout of banks has not trickled down to the consumer, Emrich said.

But Emrich assures his customers that PG&E, for example, offers utility rebates of about 25 cents per watt, down from $4 per watt, but he noted solar energy makes perfect sense as an investment regardless of rebates. Equipping a home with solar energy can pay for itself in four to five years for high usage homes and eight to ten years for homes that use less energy; either way, the homeowner is paying about 12 to 30 cents per kilowatt hour.

The company web site is HYPERLINK "http://www.solarponics.com"www.solarponics.com. Mike Emrich can be reached by phone at (805)466-5595 or via e-mail at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .