Thorp retirees pursue solar power

Oct. 19--THORP -- David and Janet Korn live with a strong environmental ethic.

Each year they harvest an abundant crop of herbs and vegetables grown organically on raised beds in the yard of their home in Thorp. They carefully monitor their consumer habits and religiously sort their household waste, reducing their garbage to less then half the national average by composting and careful sorting of recyclables.

Their latest effort to soften their ecological footprint? The Korns are producing clean energy in hopes of growing a business.

The retired Thorp schoolteachers recently worked with Next Step Energy of Eau Claire to install 36 solar panels on the roof of a guesthouse they operate next to their Thorp home, an installation that currently is producing about twice as much energy as the house uses.

"With this green energy, it's kind of like insurance," David said, explaining the reasoning behind the installation. "I'm a pretty firm believer there's some climate disruption going on, so we're insuring against that risk from a health perspective. And from a business perspective, it's free market energy."

"Once we looked at it and realized we could do it, we felt it was just the right thing to do," Janet said.

The guesthouse

For years the house next to the Korns' home operated as a rental, and by 2011 had sat unoccupied for about two years after the economic downturn. When it came up for sale, the Korns considered the possibilities.

"David had the idea of a guest house, kind of a bed-and-breakfast, and I was skeptical at first," Janet said. "But it's really worked out."

"It took a lot of cleaning and painting and other work to reclaim it," David said. "But I really thought we had a niche here, a home people could rent when they came to town to visit relatives or friends who live in the area and wanted a place of their own. Families or individuals come in for weddings, reunions and all different reasons, and they like the idea of being in a home."

The guesthouse includes three bedrooms upstairs and two bedrooms or a bedroom suite downstairs, a fully functional kitchen, laundry and all the other amenities of a home. The walls are decorated with prints of the work of an artist friend of the Korns, John Gilluly of Kansas City, Mo.

"People seem to enjoy the option of being there; a lot of times the people they've come to visit come over to the guesthouse for get-togethers," David said. "And with the porch and everything they can just relax and enjoy their visit."

And the Korns apply their environmental ethic to the guesthouse, doing everything they can to encourage their guests to sort their garbage and recycle.

And when they considered how they could take that ethic even further, it led to the solar project.

Power from the sun

The solar power movement has been growing nationwide, and western Wisconsin is following the trend, said Hannah Terwilliger, spokesperson for the second Solar Power Wisconsin Conference scheduled for Saturday at Chippewa Valley Technical College's Energy Education Center.

"There's been a lot more interest shown locally recently, especially with the energy companies putting in their community solar options," Terwilliger said.

Xcel Energy and Eau Claire Electric Cooperative are among several energy companies in this part of the state offering customers the opportunity to buy energy powered by solar energy.

Small business and residential installations like the Korns' have also shown growing local interest, in part driven by last year's Solar Power Wisconsin Conference, she said.

In 2011 the Korns had solar panels installed on their garage to help generate power for their home. Even with a limited number of panels, one of their electric bills last summer was $3.49. Wondering how solar could be utilized for their guesthouse, they contacted Next Step Energy of Eau Claire.

"We had certain restrictions right away," David said. "We didn't want anything on the ground, and we didn't want to cut down any trees."

Staff from Next Step Energy studied the guesthouse lot and layout, including its compass orientation and the existing trees, and came up with four options.

Zeus Stark of Next Step Energy said the Korns' project was in the medium-sized range of the average install. He said solar projects in rural settings, in the country or in smaller towns account for about 60 percent of current customers.

And in a key extra step, Next Step sent up a staff grant writer to see if the Korns' project would qualify for any grants and tax credits.

"We're a small business in a rural area, so we applied for a U.S. Department of Agriculture REAP grant," David said. The Rural Energy for America program offers loans and grants to agricultural producers and rural small businesses to purchase or install renewable energy systems or make energy-efficiency improvements.

The Korns opted for a design that encompassed 18 panels on each side of the gable roof, panels that could generate about 10,080 kilowatt-hours per year. The house is currently using about 4,800 kwh per year, with the extra being sent to Xcel Energy via a multidirectional meter.

"It turns out we qualified for a grant, and between that and an energy tax credit, it ended up taking care of about 48 percent of the total cost of about $39,000," David said. "So our out-of-pocket expenses becomes about a 12-year-payback, and that's doable."

The economic goal behind the project is to grow the guesthouse business into its green power potential. Stark said the company had three installations this past year that used the REAP grant program. He noted that in all three cases he felt the business would have gone ahead with the install regardless.

"Right now Xcel buys the extra back from us, but if we have more customers they'll use more power and it will be power we're producing ourselves," David said. "It makes the guest house more sustainable."

Which leads to another ethic the Korns profess, a commitment to Thorp.

When the Korns retired from their teaching careers in the Thorp school system, they made a conscious decision to stay in the community.

"A lot of time when people retire, they pull up and move someplace warmer or just someplace else," David said. "But the Thorp community invested in us, and we want to invest in the Thorp community."

He said that explains the name of their house, New Directions, a life-after-retirement activity.

"We have a small business that offers a benefit to Thorp, and it does it in way that reduces its ecological footprint," David said. "It just seems to be the right thing to do."

Contact: 715-830-5926, [email protected], @ECPC_DanL on Twitter

If You Go

What: Solar Power Wisconsin Affordable Energy Conference.

When: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday.

Where: Chippewa Valley Technical College's Energy Education Center, 4000 Campus Road.

Cost: Free, but registration is requested.

Information: solarpowerwisconsin.com.

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