Business owners: you can reduce your impact on the environment and earn money doing it. Here’s how: (graphic: 7 year return of initial investment)

“Company A” operates in Albuquerque, NM. The company approaches us with a year’s worth of electricity bills. We determine that the company uses 100,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity annually.

Company A completes an energy audit to identify cost-effective ways to reduce wasted electricity. With a total investment of $10,000, Company A reduces electricity usage by 25% to 75,000 kilowatt-hours per year.

Company A installs a twenty kilowatt Positive Energy rooftop PV system costing $160,000. The PV system produces about 34,500 kilowatt-hours of clean power annually, which offsets 46% of the company’s remaining electricity usage and 46% of its carbon footprint related to electricity. Thus Company A’s total investment is $170,000.

Year 1: 28% return, based on the 30% federal tax credit on solar system costs. (Note that this credit can be applied to previous tax years.) = $44,800 tax credit.
Year 1: 26% additional return, based on depreciating the asset over one year in a 28% tax bracket = $41,600 tax credit.
Year 1-7: 12% net metering value (at 2009 rates) = $20,528 savings.
Year 1-7: 21% REC payment value based on 15 cents per REC = $36,225 income.
Year 1-7: 12% value of reduced electrical consumption with efficiency improvements = $20,527 savings.

Company A’s initial investment, now fully repaid, continues to return $5000 in income and $6000 in utility savings annually for the life of the system, which could easily be an additional 30 years. This is achieved with virtually no maintenance and little additional expense. Company A’s impact on the planet is permanently reduced as well.

Getting imaginative, we could easily add $30,000 in additional sales generated from favorable publicity Company A received from the television news stories and newspaper articles focused on the company’s new solar investment, but we won’t because we can’t prove these numbers.

Financing is available.