George Larsen's rance, a 20,000-acre property, turns to gravel and the power lines do not follow. Larsen's parents, turn-of-the-century-sodbusters, harnessed the wind and power from a secondhand, 32 -volt generator bought from a country school to electrify their place. The power generated from those two sources charged a system so eccentric that headlights served as indoor lighting in some buildings. And that's the way it was right up until recently, when George decided to go solar.
"It costs too much to bring the wire out," said Larsen, who is five months shy of his 90th birthday and lives at least 3 1/2 miles from the nearest power pole. "I'd have to pay for the power line."
That cost of stringing wire several miles to Larsen's place could have easily exceeded $50,000 a mile, which made the often-high cost of solar more attractive to the life-time rancher.
There's no shortage of sun near Custer, where shade is scarce and the sky's bright blue curtain drags uninterrupted along the horizon in every direction. On a day when the forecast is clear and 85 degrees, the sun makes good on its promise and then some.
Larsen wears the uniform of a cowboy working in the sun; long- sleeved shirt with mother of pearl snaps clasped at his wrists and a thin T-shirt underneath. His cowboy hat sports an ever-broadening watermark around its hatband. His sunglass lenses are coal black and wide enough to reach his cheekbones.
Solar experts rate southeast Montana's potential for generating energy to be very good. The number of clear-sky days works in the area's favor, while the amount of the time the sun spends at optimal positions in the sky hurts its rating some. Still, there's ample solar energy to be tapped, said Bruce Burrows, a solar contractor.
"If you can see a shadow on the ground you're good," said Burrows, standing beside a solar-fed stock tank.
Burrows got his start in solar by putting up panels at missile batteries for the U.S. Defense Department. He and partner James Roan have carved out a niche wiring off-the-grid ranches and wells with solar energy systems. The Billings men do business as Ra Solar Inc.
On a hot June day, the rusted windmill blades towering over Larsen's stock tanks were idle, but the solar panels mounted below pulled cool water into the tanks for Larsen's polled Herefords. There's a simple float attached to the tank edge that lowers like the ball in a toilet tank as the thirsty Hereford's drink. After the water level has fallen several inches, the float signals the water pump to fire up again.
The solar conversion - newly drilled well included - costs between $6,000 and $8,000, Roan said. The setup pays for itself in a couple of years, because the stock tanks wired to solar are relatively low maintenance.
Larsen no longer has to send a hired man out to the tank to check on the water supply or refuel the gas generator that used to pump the water whenever the wind died down. He also likes the idea of not having the hot generator running in a dry pasture, potentially causing a fire.
The ranch house solar system will take much longer to pay for itself because of its size and complexity. Twenty-four solar panels mounted to a south-facing frame tilted at 45 degrees gather enough energy not only to do the wash and power the TV but also to electrify a half dozen outbuildings. To keep the juice flowing night and day, Burrows installed a storage bank of 28 batteries, weighing 130 pounds each, in a small outbuilding. The knee-high batteries are made in Billings by Interstate Battery Systems.
"In George's case, he can run off the batteries for about three days," Burrows said.
Batteries have been a key piece of the rural electricity puzzle for a century, Burrows said. Short on power, homesteaders like Larsen's parents used to bring the batteries from their cars inside to power the family radio. That also meant they were using direct current, common in automobiles, rather than alternating current, which is standard in homes.
Unable to convert the current from DC power to AC power, the homesteaders used headlights instead of incandescent bulbs. The power coming from the solar panels has to be converted to AC power as well, which isn't a problem for systems. The conversion is done in the small out-building where the batteries sit.
The upfront cost for a residential system as big as Larsen's can cost $25,000 to $50,000. The sticker shock is enough to give most homeowners pause, but in Larsen's case, the cost of stringing power lines for several miles made going solar seem reasonable.But for homeowners with utility power at the pole, the cash value of solar can be murky. Using a solar estimator to weigh the average Yellowstone County resident's energy costs against the price of going solar, the break-even point could be 14 to 26 years. That's if the home is a NorthWestern Energy customer with an average monthly energy bill of $73.
There are several solar estimators online to assist home-owners in figuring out whether solar power is right for them. Almost all estimators require the person doing the calculating to name the power provider and give a monthly estimate of power consumption or an average monthly electric bill. The average monthly power consumption for a NorthWestern Energy customer is 750 kilowatt hours a month.
The cost of replacing that NorthWestern Energy service with a solar system turned out to be about $53,000 after rebates and tax incentives.
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