Domenic Bucci, president of the Rhode Island Solar Energy Association, at his home in Cranston, where he heats his water, cooks and grows his organic vegetable garden with solar energy.

The Providence Journal / Connie Grosch

Domenic Bucci has a deep concern for the environment.

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In his Cranston backyard, the retired heating engineer and World War II veteran grows vegetables, fruits and herbs, all organic. Sweet pea and cucumber vines climb string trellises. Raspberry bushes line the driveway and mint plants sprout by the house. His garden is partially shaded by pear and plum trees.

So when it comes to energy, the most obvious choice for Bucci, 82, is sunlight.

Bucci, president of the Rhode Island Solar Energy Association, has designed a solar oven using aluminum foil, plastic and wood. For 20 years, Bucci has used it to preheat and reheat his meals and to teach others about the benefits of solar.

On a tall pole, Bucci has a 300-watt solar panel system to generate electricity for his house. On an average day it makes about 1 kilowatt of electricity, which he uses to run a typical range oven.

The sun-powered appliance that gets the most use is his passive solar water heater. The simple system consists of a 40-gallon tank painted with a special black coating to absorb sunlight. The tank, on the side of the house, is enclosed in an insulated box with a double-glazed glass lid that also traps heat from the sun.

The tank provides Bucci and his wife, Justine, enough hot water for cooking and cleaning from April to October. Bucci estimated that he saves about $300 annually on his heating bills.

“If we have a cloudy day we can work with cold water,” Bucci said. “We live a Spartan lifestyle.”

Bucci paid $3,000 for his photovoltaic system — the solar panels commonly seen on roofs that convert sunlight into electricity — but the cost is secondary. He believes the public should invest in solar power simply to improve the environment and reduce global warming.

“When you buy a car, do you ask for payback? When you buy a TV, do you ask for payback?” said Bucci. “When it comes to saving energy, why ask for payback? Do what you can to save energy.”

Like all renewable-energy sources — which in 2004 made up less than 10 percent of all energy produced in the nation — solar holds onto a small niche. Bucci is one of just dozens of Rhode Island residents and businesses embracing the solar-energy industry, which has slowly started to rebound from its crash in the mid-1980s when scores of companies making and installing solar-power equipment went bust.

IN THE LATE 1970s, public interest in solar energy increased when the price of oil escalated after the Middle East oil embargo, said Noah Kaye, a spokesman for the Solar Energy Industries Association, a trade organization based in Washington, D.C.

Fueled by a federal tax credit, more than 1 million solar water heating systems were installed across the country from 1979 to 1985, the association estimates.

After the tax credit expired in 1985, the solar industry crashed. Kaye said more than 98 percent of the U.S. solar power companies went out of business. The number of companies that manufactured solar power systems dropped from 225 in 1985 to 98 a year later.

Another problem that plagued the early years of the solar industry was the relative newness of the technology, Bucci says.

“In the 1970s, everybody and his brother wanted to be a solar installer,” he said. “They failed miserably because of the lack of training and the untested solar components, controllers, solar collectors and tanks.

“As of today, they are very technical; the equipment is very good. The warranties are excellent and longevity is good. It’s come a long way.”

Nationally today, solar power contributes the least energy of all renewable sources, comprising only .06 percent of the electricity consumed and .018 percent of the electricity made in the United States, according to 2004 data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Nationwide, about 394 megawatts are produced by solar power plants and about 600 megawatts of electricity is produced by residential and commercial photovoltaic systems, Kaye said.

The United States is the third largest producer of solar electricity with 11 percent of the world’s photovoltaic installations, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. The solar electricity powerhouses in terms of total installation are Germany and Japan, with 41 percent and 32 percent respectively.

The U.S. numbers could grow with President Bush’s Solar America Initiative, which proposes to make solar-power systems more cost-competitive with other forms of electricity by 2015. The program plans to spend $148 million this year in solar technology research.

IN RHODE ISLAND, the solar movement is slowly coming out of the dormancy that hit in the mid-1980s, according to several people in the solar power industry.

Throughout Rhode Island, there are only 92 photovoltaic systems in homes and businesses, said Julie Capobianco, renewable-energy program manager for the state Office of Energy Resources. The photovoltaic systems produce 610,579 kilowatt hours of electricity a year. Most of the 92 homes also receive electricity from the grid.

Bob Chew worked in the solar power industry during its heyday in the 1970s and got back into the business in 2000 when he founded SolarWrights, a Bristol company that has done hundreds of installations in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut of solar thermal heating and photovoltaic units — the two most common ways solar energy is used. (Chew also has started a wind-energy company, WindWrights.)

Over the years, Chew has noticed an increase in demand and a wider range of solar power clients.

Solar heating systems have become more popular in Rhode Island, Chew said, because state tax credits provide more financing. (See story on Page A7.) It tends to be more affluent Rhode Islanders who can afford the more-expensive photovoltaic systems, he said. In Connecticut and Massachusetts, the tax credits for photovoltaic systems are better and those systems are more popular.

“Ever since Al Gore’s movie [An Inconvenient Truth] came out and more people became more aware of the impact of burning fossil fuels, there’s been more people who want to do something to minimize their impact,” Chew said.

Len Loomans, of Cranston, who has worked with solar power systems for 26 years and now consults as an energy engineer, has also noticed a difference in the customers who buy solar power systems. “It used to be the hardcore pioneers. It used to be mostly people living remote from a power line. Now we see everyone interested.”

Still daunting, though, is the cost of the systems.

A solar thermal heating system consists of a flat-plate absorber — usually mounted on a roof — that collects the sun’s energy, a storage tank and a system of pipes with a fluid, usually water, which transports heat through a house or building. In passive solar thermal systems, the warmth circulates naturally through convection. An active solar heating system requires a pump or fan.

A typical solar thermal system (a water heater system) — two 4-foot by 8-foot solar collectors, an 80-gallon storage tank and pump — costs between $6,000 and $7,000, Loomans said.

For a solar heating system for a building or house, the price could range from $15,000 to $50,000, depending on the size and design, Chew said. Ideally, the home or building would already have a radiant heating system in the floor. That system would also qualify for state and federal tax incentives.

With photovoltaic energy, solar cells made of silicon convert sunlight into electricity. The electricity goes through an inverter, which converts the energy from a DC to AC current, then is transported to a circuit breaker box, if the system is hooked up to the utility grid, or a system of batteries, if it is an independent system.

The cost of the roof-mounted solar panel system varies between $10 to $12 per watt, depending on the design and type of installation, Loomans said. A photovoltaic system is fairly low maintenance and can last 20 to 25 years, he said. Chew put the average cost per watt at $8 to $9 and said that the typical installation, of a 4-kilowatt system, would cost about $30,000.

Chew said a lot of people focus on the initial costs of a photovoltaic system, but the lifespan of the system will keep the electricity costs steady, while the price of other forms of electricity fluctuate. “If you compare first 5 or 10 years, PV systems don’t do as well,” Chew said. “But if you compare them with other technology over a 10-year period they look much, much better.”

DAN CARTIER, an engineer who lives in Richmond, has bought into solar energy.

Cartier said his goal was to “get to zero” environmental impact with his two-story home, which he built in 1993. The house has 10.5 inches of insulation and uses passive solar design.

In 2003, Cartier installed a 4-kilowatt photovoltaic system and a four-panel solar water heater. Electricity-saving appliances in his home include a wood-pellet stove and propane-powered clothes dryer.

The best part of his upgrades, he said, have been his low energy bills, which go down to zero some months. Cartier estimated that he spends about $1,200 a year in energy for electricity, propane and wood pellets.

“It’s really nice sometimes,” he said about his solar panels. “You know you’re not generating any pollution.”

Last year, Karina Lutz installed a 3-kilowatt photovoltaic system on her Providence home. She uses compact fluorescents in every fixture and doesn’t use air conditioning. The system, which cost about $11,000, produces about 3,000 kilowatt hours a year. Lutz only uses 2,000 kilowatt hours, and provides the rest to the grid. She sells extra electricity in the form of renewable energy credits. “I can’t tell you how thrilled I am that I make more than I use,” said Lutz, director of development and advocacy for People’s Power & Light, a nonprofit organization that promotes renewable energy.

If there is a capital of residential solar use in the state, though, it is Block Island, where utility prices are high and most residents rely on diesel shipments to power generators.

About 50 island homes have photovoltaic electricity and there were about 70 projects in the works for solar thermal heating and wind power, said Chris Warfel, president of Entech Engineering, which ran a renewable energy program on the island from 2000 to 2003. The program was financed by a $400,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy.

PUBLIC SCHOOLS and businesses have also been furthering the cause of solar.

Schools have received small photovoltaic systems to teach students about solar energy. And the Chariho Regional School District has a 15-kilowatt photovoltaic system, which has helped power the administration building, and middle and high schools for two years, said Cartier, who works as the director of buildings and grounds for the school district. It generates about 18,000 kilowatt of electricity per year.

Not including Chariho, there are 17 schools across the state, as well as Roger Williams Park Zoo, that got solar panels from the state Office of Energy Resources.

While Cartier said it does not comprise a large amount of Chariho’s electricity use, he noted that the system produces enough to power three to five energy-efficient houses.

Several businesses and nonprofit organizations also produce some of their energy from photovoltaic systems, including Save the Bay, the Audubon Society of Rhode Island and the 17 Gordon Avenue Business Incubator, a former South Providence factory that was converted into the state’s first “green” commercial building.

BJ’s Wholesale Club in Middletown has one of the largest photovoltaic systems in the state. What started as a 40-kilowatt system in 1998 expanded to a 60-kilowatt system in 2004, said Michael Pace, a BJ’s energy engineer.

The solar array on the roof produces about 73,000 kilowatt hours a year, enough to power seven houses for an entire year, Pace said.

During peak production times in the summer, the solar panels produce about 20 percent of the store’s electricity, he said. The system also reduces about 112,000 pounds of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere per year.

The Whole Foods Market on North Main Street in Providence also has a large photovoltaic system. The 29-kilowatt array, installed in December 2004, provides about 10 percent of the store’s electricity at its peak.

The array reduces about 35,000 pounds of carbon dioxide each year from the atmosphere, the equivalent of planting four acres of trees, said Jewel Gregson, the store’s marketing team leader. Gregson said the store also uses wind power and the company plans to set up solar panels in a new store that will open this fall in Cranston.

“It’s a cost-effective way for us to run a business and to walk our talk, help the environment and sustainability,” Gregson said.

mlee@pressofac.com