Santa Clarita Residents Invite You To Help Get SC Valley Off the Grid

, a psychotherapist, wrote a letter to the editor of the Newhall Signal stating that HOAs could be pivotal in creating or supporting large-scale projects to convert homes to solar by buying in bulk and lowering the costs to the home owner. We met up and created SCV Off the Grid. Since then, we have been holding monthly public meetings defining a project, making community contacts, and building an informational website for local residents wanting to move into a modern energy future.

SCV Off the Grid promotes awareness and implementation of largescale retrofits for solar, wind and watershed technologies in the Santa Clarita Valley that will improve future marketability of older homes in the area. New developments built from the ground up will benefit more from connecting with the sky down, including eco-amenities for sun, wind and water usefulness. It is especially important for older home developments to retrofit, not only for environmental reasons, but to save energy costs and to be able to compete in the real estate market in future years.

We have an informative PowerPoint presentation, which we provided to both the Stevenson Ranch HOA and the Stevenson Ranch Town Council. Comments from both groups were overall positive and it seemed clear to most people in attendance that this sort of change needs to happen.

What if a community could place hundreds of solar panels on southfacing hillsides, farm the energy and sell it back to the power company? Current law does not allow for buyback, but there has been some discussion in Sacramento about changing the law to allow for buyback of energy. If buybacks were allowed, each community could be empowered to advance its technology and culture, like the telephone co-ops of the early 1900s, The way we think about energy and its control would make a powerful shift.

Solar is only one piece of the pie. Retrofitting homes to newer energy-saving air conditioning units could also save homeowners a lot of money, especially if done en masse. Neighborhood energy audits, public education and watershed conservation projects, as well as wind power are also important.

SCV Off the Grid has not created a business entity yet and is exploring what that might be or look like. Once they are ready to proceed on a project, they hope an HOA will work with them in advertising a package for the first 50 or 100 homeowners in one association to buy panels at a reduced cost and get off the grid.

For more info and a schedule of future meetings, please go to their website or call Leah Pollack at 661-309-3195 or Steve Kassel at 661-259-3704.