Solar Strip: Businesses cut into utility costs with panels, incentives

Businesses from Springfield to Branson are ready for the summer heat. They’re counting on the sun to help lower their electric bills.

At the O’Reilly Wooten Offices in east Springfield, which serves as personal offices for siblings Charlie, David and Larry O’Reilly and Rosalie O’Reilly Wooten, a year-old solar power system installed by Skywire Electrical Systems LLC is capable of generating just over 17 kilowatts and producing about 75 percent of the 2831 S. Ingram Mill Road building’s electricity. Charlie O’Reilly estimated the total cost of the system to the owners – the four siblings’ 11 children organized as O’Reilly-Wooten 2001 LLP – at roughly $56,000.

Helping to offset the cost of the O’Reilly Wooten Offices system, and others like it, is the Solar Investment Tax Credit, which provides a 30 percent federal income tax credit to commercial and residential solar installation projects initiated through 2019. Originally scheduled to expire at the end of the year, Congress extended the credit another five years in December.

But O’Reilly said cost savings were a secondary consideration.

“It’s no secret our world is heading for environmental problems as far as air and water purity and quality,” O’Reilly said. “Our state, our city – whoever – has to start the trend toward cleaner energy. That was probably the initial motivation. Then you start looking at the dollar figures, and it can easily become a financial incentive, too.”

Spend to save
The federal credit is one of a few cost-cutting measures encouraging other area businesses to spend for solar energy.

Carter Turnbull, owner of Keen Eye Antiques in Ozark, said as an Empire District Electric Co. customer, his 37.5-kilowatt system installed last fall by Missouri Sun Solar LLC qualified for the utility provider’s maximum rebate of $25,000. Combined with the tax credit, both incentives turned an estimated cost of $89,300 into an actual cost in the $50,000 range.

Through accelerated tax depreciation, Turnbull estimated he’ll deduct $12,860 as a business expense for five years’ worth of taxes.

“It’s about value,” Turnbull said. “Obviously, there’s what you will save per month, but there’s also the value you add to the structure. I probably won’t run an antique mall my whole life.”

Turnbull said even in cloudy months the system’s savings already are discernible: With an average monthly electric cost of $700-$1,100 – projected to reach $2,000 in 20 years, based on inflation – Turnbull said his March bill for the 9,100-square-foot building was $24.

Nina Jarosz, a co-owner of Korol Management Group Inc., which operates Ozark Valley Inn and Scenic Hills Inn in Branson, said the company also used Missouri Sun Solar to install a 50-kilowatt system at Ozark Valley Inn to offset rising utilities. She said despite an initial cost of roughly $100,000, Empire District’s rebate, plus a U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Energy for America grant for up to 25 percent of eligible costs, convinced the company to install a solar power system.

“That was the other impulse for us, that we would get some grants from the USDA,” Jarosz said, adding the company also received Empire’s maximum $25,000 rebate.

During peak usage in the summer, Jarosz said the 65-room hotel’s electricity bill climbs above $7,000 per month.

Since the solar panels were installed in November, she said recent bills have decreased 25-30 percent.

Branson boom
Ozark Valley Inn’s system was installed at the beginning of a boom for Branson projects, with banks and hotels among the leading industries.

Next week, Branson-based All-Tech-Energy LLC is scheduled to finish one branch installation for Branson Bank at 15514 U.S. Highway 160 in Forsyth, and start another at 1501 State Highway 248. Branson Bank President and CEO Bill Jones said solar projects are part of the bank’s strategic initiative to engage with emerging customer demographics.

Renewable energy, he said, is a key point of concern among millennials.

“It’s important as a corporate citizen to do things our customers also deem as valuable,” Jones said, noting the bank formed a committee to address the younger demographics. “We’ve learned a lot by gathering feedback from millennials to help us as senior management better understand things we want to incorporate into our business model.”

Jones projected the two branch installations, estimated to cost over $100,000 before grants, rebates and credits, would save the bank $10,000 per year in utility costs.

Branson Bank’s newly powered branches arrive on the heels of six other arrays recently installed at Branson hotels.

March brought the completion of new systems at five of six Myer Hotel Inc. properties by Missouri Sun Solar, and Kansas City-based Brightergy LLC soon will complete an 18-kilowatt array for O’Reilly Hospitality Management LLC’s Baymont Inn & Suites.

The company, run by Managing Member and CEO Tim O’Reilly, son of Charlie, is no stranger to energy efficient projects as the developer and manager of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design-certified Hilton Garden Inn and Houlihan’s restaurant on Springfield’s south side.

According to Baymont Inn & Suites General Manager Wes Sutton, energy efficiency is an emerging consideration for business travelers – particularly when employers require it.

A former employee of a Residence Inn in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Sutton said the hotel attracted a significant number of NASA workers because the agency mandated employees stay at hotels certified under the Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s Green Lodging Program.

He noted travel-oriented review websites such as TripAdvisor.com have added their own forms of certification to directly market eco-friendly properties.

“If people are browsing for a hotel, maybe they’re looking for just that – a hotel that practices sustainability – and they narrow the search to just those places,” Sutton said. “From a guest satisfaction standpoint, that’s a big catch.”