HOT DOG:

HOT DOG: It looks like our take on home solar energy generation is getting a little support from the Big Island.

In a an op-ed piece in the Sunday Advertiser Marco Mangelsdorf, president of ProVision Technologies Inc. of Hilo, shows that the numbers make sense and the time is now for solar homes even more so if the credits currently extended to businesses were available to individual home owners and the electric companies change the way they view their jobs- something Kaua`i is uniquely positioned to do if we can rid ourselves of the corporate “we sell electricity” mindset or our co-op’s honchos.

Are Mangelsdorf and his company part of a new trend? The question is pertinent because when you ask politicians why the support for solar roofs is practically nil they whisper “ask the industry”... which are doing fine thank you with little competition and high prices. When the reported 65 percent federal and state tax credit for businesses goes to home-owners too the price of a system could be paid off in as little as five or six years’ worth of electric bills, even at the low low current electric bill of $200 a month.