It was clear to the Perezes that they were onto something big. They incorporated a solar dealership, Electron Connection, in the late '70s, but spent most of their time instructing new customers on how to operate and maintain their systems. The logical solution was to create a technical magazine that educated users and provided an advertising outlet for the burgeoning market of renewable-energy companies.
Home Power's success is due largely to the fact that it has virtually no competitors. Other periodicals cover the renewable-energy industry - Solar Today and Solar Industry Journal among them - but they cater mainly to industry people. And though Richard speaks regularly at renewable-energy conferences and has been hired by major utilities to design their systems, he says his primary mission is to serve end-users.
"The point is that sunlight, which is the power source, is inherently diffuse," says Richard. "It is democratically and freely delivered to every bum daily."
Home Power has always been motivated by personal philosophy rather than profit. It limits advertising to one-third of its content (most magazines are closer to two-thirds advertising) and regularly turns away advertisers hawking shoddy products. The magazine imports expensive printing paper from Denmark because it meets high standards for post-consumer waste content. Richard proudly calls the company a "commie outfit" in which all employees (including the founders) are paid the same - about $14 an hour.
The articles in Home Power detail similarly remarkable examples of the new high-tech environmentalism: a Microsoft (MSFT) programmer living off-grid in a solar-powered cabin; a solar-powered coffee farm in Washington; a man in downtown Chicago with a rooftop wind and solar array.
These may sound like oddball sci-fi fantasies, but the current energy crisis and advances in technology can only accelerate renewable energy's penetration into the mainstream. Currently, 30 states, including California, have "net metering" laws that enable consumers to connect their independent energy systems to the grid. If a consumer generates a surplus of electricity and contributes back into the grid - a process known as "spinning the meter backward" - the utility will credit that consumer's electricity bill.
Until now, solar energy prices have been prohibitive for most on-grid consumers. The average cost for grid energy last year was just under 9 cents per kilowatt-hour, while solar ran a whopping 22 cents per kwh. But now that prices for fossil fuel power in California run 20 cents per kwh and higher, solar has become vastly more competitive.
And as the renewable-power industry grows, economies of scale and improvements in technology will further reduce the cost of solar power. British Petroleum's solar division, BP Solar, sold $179 million in generators in 1999, surpassing its projected sales by more than 12 percent. Last year Japanese manufacturer Kyocera sold $300 million in solar equipment - a 20 percent increase from the previous fiscal year. Paul Maycock, editor of Photovoltaic News, estimates that by 2010 the cost of solar power in the United States will be low enough to compete with traditional energy sources.
Richard and Karen Perez hope these big-business developments will ultimately empower consumers and disempower corporate monopolies. "What we have is the ability to take this essential item - electricity - and place its creation on an individual's shoulders rather than on big corporate shoulders," says Richard. "We have taken it out of the realm of being a commodity that we purchase to something you can grow."
Amanda Griscom is a technology writer in New York.
