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In his warm, dry suburban split-level, Nathan Gorr is far from the worst effects of climate change.
But even here, he said, the signs are accumulating. There was that heavy rain a few years ago — the worst downpour he’d ever seen. There are the federal disasters that Gorr, who works in mortgage servicing, tracks on the job: floods, storms and hurricanes.
There’s even the joyful 2003 honeymoon photo of Gorr and his wife, Heidi, that sits on the kitchen counter. The place where the photo was taken — historic Lahaina, Hawaii — burned this summer in a deadly wildfire.
All of which brings Gorr, 46, to the shiny, black solar panels that workers are affixing to his roof.
“I feel like it’s something that’s making a difference,” he said during an interview punctuated by the screech of a power tool. “You know, the more people that see it, the more people will be encouraged to do it. Our neighbors are asking.”
Driven by concerns about a warming planet and encouraged by generous state and federal incentives, Illinois homeowners are turning to solar power like never before.
Residential solar is having its best year ever in Illinois, with 170 megawatts of power added in the first three quarters, compared with 125 megawatts in all of 2022, according to data from the Solar Energy Industries Association and research consultancy Wood Mackenzie.
A record 12,600 residential rooftop solar systems were connected to the ComEd grid in northern Illinois in the first 11 months of 2023, up from 10,400 in all of 2022, and just 98 in 2013, according to ComEd. Ameren, the state’s second-largest electric utility, reported a similarly stellar year in southern and central Illinois, with 6,900 residential rooftop systems connected, up from 2,600 in 2022.
Homeowners told the Tribune they waited years to make the leap to solar, and government incentives equal to about 60% of the cost made the decision easier.
The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act included a 30% tax credit and the state’s 2021 climate law — the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act — offers a rebate equal to roughly another 30% of the price of a residential rooftop system.
Aaron Stigberg of the Albany Park neighborhood said that, together, those two incentives brought the cost of his $22,000 rooftop solar project down to $7,200.
“It was always something that we wanted to do,” he said of the rooftop panels he and his partner installed on their bungalow in March. “It was just a question of when the money piece made sense.”
A 2022 Pew Research Center survey found that 39% of Americans had recently given serious thought to getting solar panels installed, and an additional 8% had already done so.
State and federal governments are encouraging rooftop solar at a time when the world is struggling to stay on track to reduce planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050 and prevent the worst effects of climate change.
But obstacles to rooftop solar adoption remain, including cost and confusion about which solar businesses are offering the best products and financing deals.
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If all of the residential rooftops in the ComEd region were used for solar generation, that would give us 42,000 megawatts of clean energy, or enough to power about 6.6 million homes, according to Scott Vogt, ComEd’s vice president of strategy and energy policy. Some of those roofs aren’t suitable for solar, he said, but many are, and the financial benefits are real.
“Customers that adopt solar (have bills that) are so much lower than customers who haven’t,” Vogt said. “It’s a natural cost savings. There are no ifs, ands or buts about it.”
Stigberg said his winter electric bill used to be about $130 a month; now he expects it to be about $30 or less. In the summer, the bill for his family of five is $13, or just the cost to stay connected.
“I’m actually kind of surprised that more of my friends haven’t done it,” he said.
Most residential rooftop solar systems pay for themselves in eight to 10 years, according to Lisa Albrecht, owner of All Bright Solar, a sales and design company in Chicago.
And the savings on your electric bill continue, even after you break even on your initial investment.
Albrecht said that when a couple approaches her about getting rooftop solar, there’s often one climate-motivated partner who has taken on the role of researcher. But then the economics come into play, and that’s what seals the deal.
“It becomes a no-brainer for people,” Albrecht said.
Rooftop solar took a big hit in Illinois in 2021, when money set aside to pay for state incentives ran out. At the time, installers said they were facing tough decisions, such as laying off specialized workers they had trained and would need if funding was reinstated.
Residential rooftop solar installations fell to 8,800 in northern Illinois in 2021, a 16% decline from 2020, as homeowners put off projects.
“I was in the dot-com world — just in the beginning — and I’ve never been in an industry that has as many ups and downs as the solar industry,” Albrecht said. “It’s definitely not for the faint of heart.”
But through it all, interest in rooftop solar continued, and when the government incentives returned, homeowners were ready to act.
The solar company Stigberg was working with told him 2023 was a good time to make his move. Gorr figured that the incentives would never be better — and might actually get worse if there were a power shift in Washington.
Tania Kadakia of the west Logan Square neighborhood said the government incentives helped, but so did finally having the time to tackle a purchase that demands a lot from the consumer.
“The financing is opaque at best — and I work in finance for a living,” said Kadakia.
She was able to sort through her options after she left a very demanding job and started her own business as an affordable housing and community development consultant and developer.
She and her husband are lucky that they can afford to add solar to their two-story 1920 frame home, she said, and they were able to get what’s effectively a no-interest loan. But the terms of the loan — free if you repay in 11 months, with a big penalty if you don’t — made her concerned for customers with fewer resources.
“There’s lots of people who want to do this,” she said of rooftop solar. “My gut tells me that part of the reason there aren’t more solar panels on peoples’ houses is people start to get into it and they’re like, ‘I don’t even know what this is. I don’t know what I’m signing. I don’t know how to approach this. I don’t even know if these are the right panels.’”
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Both Gorr and Stigberg said it was helpful to know someone who already had solar and was willing to offer guidance.
In Gorr’s case, that person was his dad, Peter, who got solar installed at his previous home in Palatine in 2011 and then moved and got solar again at his home in Deer Park in 2017. Now retired, Peter Gorr serves on the board of directors of the nonprofit Illinois Solar Education Association.
Nathan Gorr said his dad made the process of shopping around a lot easier by recommending people to work with.
Gorr ended up going with a team composed of Albrecht, who sold him his solar system and did the initial design, and Garrison Riegel, who did the installation. Riegel, owner of Celestar Solar in Albany Park, installed both of Peter Gorr’s solar roofs, as well as the solar roof on Nathan’s brother’s garage.
Because Nathan Gorr didn’t have to shop around, the project moved quickly.
He got started in September, he said, and the panels went up the last week of November.
Afternoon Briefing
He expects to save about $110 a month on his winter electric bill, which includes electric heat. Illinois has net metering, in which homes that produce more solar than they can use in summer earn credits that reduce their electric bills in winter.
[ In the fight against climate change, some Chicagoans are going all-electric at home ]
“The savings month over month — that’s really going to benefit us financially,” Gorr said.
He’s also looking forward to fielding questions, sparking interest and making solar a little more mainstream.
“To me, it’s hard to argue against climate change,” Gorr said. “It’s not just the hot or the cold, but it’s storms getting stormier and winds getting windier and when things do happen, they happen intensely. I have three kids, and anything I can do to start to make an impact, I’d like to do that.”