But given a birds eye view, the company’s exterior has much more going on, with 91 solar panels occupying the entire rooftop.
“About 60 percent of our power will be taken care of,” Gregory Orcutt, owner, said about the recently installed solar panels.
Orcutt said he first was introduced to the idea of solar panels about a year ago when his accounting company began working with Icon Solar Power, another Milford company.
Icon Solar Power has been installing solar panels to residential homes and businesses for about three years and has already helped more than 100 clients reduce their carbon footprint.
While the cost of installing the panels can be high, Zach Wieber, operations manager of Icon Solar Power, said that the reduction in electricity can pay for the investment in six years at most.
Wieber said while the Cincinnati area may see a lot of unfavorable weather, Ohio gets 4.2 to 4.3 hours of sunlight per day based on an annual average. He said Germany, the leader of solar power, gets an average of 3.8 hours and Florida, the sunshine state, gets an average of five hours.
Silicon, a metalloid that is located on the inside of the solar panels, is what reacts with the sunlight to produce a charge. The charge gets sent to inverters as DC power. It is then converted to AC power and used to power the building.
Because solar panels are a form of alternative energy, federal and state incentives are available to homeowners and business owners to help with installation costs.
“It made sense for me to look into it,” Orcutt said about investigating the savings.
While incentives vary depending on money available, Orcutt was able to save $107,000 on his $141,000 installation. Thirty percent of his savings came from a federal residential renewable energy tax credit and the other portion came from a grant from the Ohio Department of Energy.
Wieber said many of their installations have been local. They have installed panels for residents and small business owners in Bethel, Milford, New Richmond and more.
Orcutt said he is excited to see his investment start to pay off, and as soon as the system is up and running, he will be able to see how much power is being created by the panels.
In addition, if the panels produce more power than his building needs, the power will feed back into Duke Energy’s system and his meter will actually spin backward to account for the power created.
“It will be great to have the savings,” Orcutt said. “It is a significant investment but it will pay itself off.”