Lighting firm’s Iraq contract shows solar devices heating up
By Eve Samples, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
October 05, 2007
Source: Palm Beach Post.com
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/business/content/business/
epaper/2007/10/05/a1d_solar_1005.html
When dusk fades to dark in Fallujah, Iraq, more than 1,000 of Steve Robbins’ solar-powered lights illuminate the streets. Contractors started installing the lights, manufactured at the Martin County headquarters of his Solar Electric Power Co., this summer as part of an Army Corps of Engineers project in the violence-plagued Iraqi town. For the corps, they’re part of an effort to make Fallujah safer. For SEPCO, as Robbins’ company is known, the $4 million contract is the company’s largest yet – and it represents big possibilities for its solar devices.
Robbins and his wife and business partner, Susan, have been working with solar power for more than two decades, long before the green movement gained celebrity-caliber cachet.
In addition to the Iraq contract, SEPCO has manufactured streetlights for 17 villages in Afghanistan, floodlights for the Pentagon, 200 streetlights for an entire Dania Beach neighborhood and flashing lights for school-zone signs across Palm Beach County.
A dozen years ago, it installed solar-powered floodlights at John D. MacArthur Beach State Park. The lights still shine on park visitors today. “I do this so that we can lower our dependence on foreign fuel,” Robbins said at his warehouse south of Stuart. “A lot of people don’t think that lighting costs fuel, but it does.”
That notion is catching on, especially among cost-conscious governments and businesses. SEPCO’s sales have grown about 200 percent annually in recent years, and they now top $5 million a year, Robbins said. Much of the business has come from federal contracts.
“Anecdotally, we know the trend is up,” said Monique Hanis, director of communication for the Washington-based Solar Energy Industries Association. “We’re seeing it on highways, we’re seeing it in local communities where municipalities are finding it more efficient at today’s costs.”
The streetlights SEPCO manufactured for Fallujah cost about $3,800 each, but the cost of a solar-powered light varies depending on size, hours of burn time and geographic location (areas with fewer sunny days need bigger solar panels and tend to be more expensive). You can harness solar power anywhere, Robbins says – even in the winter in Alaska.
SEPCO once made a solar-powered system for a meteorological reporting station in North Pole, Alaska. The trick is to make the solar panel and the battery large enough so the power can last the long, dark winter. SEPCO’s largest, most expensive lights run about $6,500, but in remote areas where power lines are difficult to access, the extra cost makes sense, Robbins said.
The company uses General Electric-made photovoltaic cells to make its solar panels and lights. The company makes other products, including solar-powered radio-frequency identification systems that companies can use to track railroad freight, but lights are SEPCO’s biggest business.
During the past several years, Martin County has installed 11 solar lighting systems, including some SEPCO made for its “Welcome to Martin County” signs. It would have cost about $20,000 to run electrical wiring to the welcome sign on U.S. 1 just south of Port St. Lucie, but SEPCO’s solar-powered system was closer to $2,000.
“There’s a lot of locations where you need light, and it’s just not very convenient to get service” from Florida Power & Light, said David Paoleschi, a Martin County project manager who has overseen the solar light installations. “It has its pros and cons, but so far it has more pros than cons.”
Among the pros are public safety benefits. After a series of murders in the woods near Port Salerno in 2004, Martin County installed solar lights to make the area safer. “Deputies can just kind of pull up on the side yard now, pull out their binoculars and see if there’s anyone out there,” Paoleschi said. After the lights are installed, they need little upkeep. Every five years or so, the lamp and battery have to be replaced – a task that costs about $165.
The life span of the lights is about 25 years. Over the years, the savings can add up. The typical non-solar streetlight racks up a little less than $20 a month in electricity costs and produces about a ton of carbon dioxide a year, SEPCO says.
Solar-powered technology makes particular sense in parts of the country susceptible to hurricanes and other events that can disrupt the power supply, the solar association’s Hanis said. “It’s an excellent backup system during times of natural disaster,” she said. Though the solar panels might look precarious, SEPCO’s devices are designed to withstand winds up to 150 mph.