By Robert Lagerblad
NTREG event coordinator for the DFW Solar Tour 2022
Saturday, October 1st was a lovely day for the 2022 solar tour in the Dallas/Ft. Worth metroplex, the first tour in two years. This year’s tour was in-person.
“We originally considered making this year’s tour a hybrid one, in person and via zoom, but we ultimately went with in-person only,” said Robert Lagerblad, NTREG event coordinator for the 2022 solar tour. Homes on this year’s tour were single family.
This year’s tour featured six homes; five in the Dallas/Plano area and one in Frisco.
According to Lagerblad, the Abdalla site was the most visited, with more than 30 visitors signed up. “Actually, more than 30 showed up since some didn’t sign up,” said Lagerblad. The Abdalla House has a 9.3kW rooftop system with a Span electrical panel and EV charger and a 13.5kWh Tesla Powerwall storage system.
According to the owner, his solar experience came after he was fired from his corporate oil and gas job.
“I wandered for a year throughout South America, Europe, Africa and Asia. During long train rides, I thought a lot about the carbon footprint I had created from working in the oil and gas sector,” he said. While he was in Germany, he learned 40% of the country’s power comes from solar.
“I was now fully bought into transitioning away from the mine-and-burn hydrocarbon economy, towards the solar-electric economy, which I believed to be the primary sustainable solution,” Abdalla said. “A future where everything is powered by the sun, including the electric vehicles in your garage.”
When I returned home, he learned about the North Texas Renewable Energy Group and the Plano Solar Advocates, two nonprofits based in DFW dedicated to the advancement of renewable energy education and advocacy. “I spent the next 24 months volunteering my time in an effort to soak up as much knowledge and experience as I could to bring my renewable energy project development dreams to fruition.”
There’s more to the 9.7kW rooftop array and 26kWh battery storage system at the Motta house.
“This combination of solar and battery backup power came to be a valuable asset during the cold and snow event of Feb 2021,” said Rick Motta. “The house generated power doing the daytime and the batteries powered the house at night during all the brown and black-outs experienced across Texas. In fact, neighbors were able to come by and warm up, shower, cook during the extended outages providing a valuable community service opportunity. During other severe weather, the solar and battery systems help keep the house functional and provides a degree of security during these stressful times.”
Lagerblad was pleased with the turnout. “We think it was successful, especially since there was a two-year hiatus and people’s solar awareness is considerably more acute after Winter Storm Uri,” he said. “A huge shout out to our hosts and volunteers who helped make the 2022 DFW solar tour a success.”